Obama Must be Churchill, not Chamberlain

Iran is playing “Hitler.” Who is in the White House? Chamberlain or Churchill?

When it comes to foreign policy, it appears that it is amateur hour in the White House.

President Obama appears to be an ideologue, with immutable opinions -- opinions that take no account of existing facts. He is like the television weatherman who tells us, “It will be partly cloudy and sunny for the rest of the afternoon,” while at that very time, hail is pouring down outside his TV studio -- he has his teleprompter, and can’t bother to look out the window!

In case you haven’t noticed, the Muslim world is in utter chaos.

While President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry continue to dither (“negotiate with Iran”) over its efforts to build a nuclear bomb, Iran has built an 88.5 foot ballistic missile, which is sitting on a launch pad just outside Tehran. According to the Jerusalem Post, “The expanded range of Iran’s ballistic missile program as indicated by the satellite imagery makes clear that its nuclear weapons program is not merely a threat to Israel, or to Israel and Europe. It is a direct threat to the United States. The reason why is obvious, if even without a nuclear bomb, Iran possesses chemical and biological weapons.

In addition, in March, the Iranian defense ministry ceremoniously displayed eight new anti-ship ballistic missiles, known as the Khalij Fars. According to Jane’s Defense Weekly, these weapons have the capacity to hone in on a ship’s infrared signature, which means that it can change direction while in flight to more accurately pursue a moving target up to 190 miles away.

In June, 2014, Vice Adm. James Syring, director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, told a congressional subcommittee the  Khalij Fars “is capable of threatening maritime activity throughout the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz.”

In Lebanon, Iran provides Hezbollah with financial aid, training, weapons, and explosives from Iran. In November 2013, Israeli security officials learned that Hezbollah had close to 200 Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles, including those that can track movement from high altitude and “kamikazes” that can avoid capture by radar and fire or drop munitions from low altitudes. In a rare televised appearance on Nov. 4. 2014, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned of a third Lebanon war and stated that Israel should close “all of your airports and your ports” in the event of one.  Nasrallah threatened Israel and claimed that “there is no place on the land of occupied Palestine that the resistance’s rockets cannot reach.” (jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/hizbollah.html)

And now, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels seized control of the Yemeni government, forcing the pro-American President to resign. The Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer writes, “While Iran’s march toward a nuclear bomb has provoked a major clash between the White House and Congress, Iran’s march toward conventional domination of the Arab world has been largely overlooked -- In Washington, that is. The Arabs have noticed. And the pro-American ones, the Gulf Arabs in particular, are deeply worried.”

Recently, the pro-American King of Saudi Arabia died. His successor will find his Saudi Arabia (Sunni) surrounded by Shiites, loyal to Iran: Yemen to the south, Iran to the East and Syria (pro Iranian) to the North. And worse, an unreliable ally in the White House. An American president who believes that America should “lead from behind” (to wit, Libya). A president who draws “red lines,” only to later ignore them.

Regardless what you think of Mr. Obama’s predecessor in office, one thing was clear to Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia: America was their ally, and America would go to war to protect them. The first President Bush demonstrated that when Saddam Hussein seized Kuwait.

Now pro-Iranian Shiites have seized Yemen. Will Mr. Obama intervene as President Bush did, or will he be content to “deplore?”

If he fails to intervene, in the short term, he will destroy all belief that America is a reliable ally in the capitals of Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the small Gulf States. In the longer run, I am afraid it will lead to the worst war the world has ever seen in the Middle East.

I say this, because I don’t think Israel is going to wait until Iran is so powerful that Israel has no chance of winning. Right now Saudi Arabia is doing the best it can: It is seeking to put off the war by depressing the price of oil to deprive Iran of oil money it would otherwise have to finance its military build-up.

I have quoted Winston Churchill before. It is even more applicable today.

“The duty (of the ministers of state) is first so to deal with other nations as to avoid strife and and war and to eschew aggression in all its forms, whether for nationalistic or ideological objects.

“But the safety of the State, the lives and freedom of their fellow countrymen ... make it right and imperative in the last resort, or when a final and definite conviction has been reached, that the use of force should not be excluded.

“If the circumstances are such as to warrant it, force may be used.

“And if this be so, it should be used under the conditions which are most favorable. There is no merit in putting off a war for a year if, when it comes, it is a far worse war or one much harder to win ....

“For the French Government to leave her faithful ally, Czechoslovakia, to her fate was a melancholy lapse from which flowed terrible consequence.”

If war is coming, and I think it is, I would rather fight Iran now when it is without nuclear weapons and a fully tested, fully operational ICBM. Mr. Obama has a fateful choice:

He can be Neville Chamberlain or Winston Churchill.

Iran, like Hitler, is advancing one step at a time, and is playing for keeps.



Posted: Saturday, February 7, 2015 12:00 am
By John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2015
John Donald O'Shea

Inflate-gate Insipidity Passed off as News

Long ago, I quit watching the evening news on NBC, ABC and CBS. Here’s why.

On Jan. 22, there were at least four major world news stories breaking -- news that adversely affects the security of America and our key allies.

Shiite rebels in Yemen -- backed by Iran -- were holding Yemen’s President Hadi captive in his home. Hadi had been a key American ally in our efforts to destroy the al-Qaida fighters in Yemen.

Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram in Nigeria told the world in a YouTube video that the murder of 2000 women, children and elderly in the Nigerian town of Baga was “nothing compared to future attacks” that he was planning, and justified Boko Haram’s mass murder saying God commanded the massacre!

 The Islamic State vowed to kill two Japanese hostages unless a $200 million ransom was paid within 72 hours.

Then at 5 p.m. (EST) on Jan. 22, King Abdullah, King of Saudi Arabia, died. In President Obama’s words, “As a leader, he was always candid and had the courage of his convictions. One of those convictions was his steadfast and passionate belief in the importance of the US-Saudi relationship as a force for stability and security in the Middle East and beyond.” His death comes at a time when the Saudi state finds itself surrounded by enemies: Iran to the East, The Islamic State to the North and now Yemen to the south.

So, on Jan. 22, 2015 what was the lead story on the three major networks? What did NBC, CBS and ABC choose as their most important news items of the day?

What item did NBC run for the first three minutes and 45 second of its “Nightly News”?
To what story did CBS devote the first two minutes forty-five seconds of its “Evening News?”
And what story did ABC deem worthy of approximately four minutes and forty seconds of coverage on its “World News?”

Inflate-gate! (profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/01/22/deflategate-leads-all-three-network-newscasts/)

-- NBC Nightly News:  “On our broadcast tonight, full denial from Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and from his coach, as a football inflation scandal remains bigger than the upcoming Super Bowl, as the question remains: Who or what was responsible?”

-- CBS Evening News: “Tonight, caught in a pressure cooker: Is Tom Brady a cheater? Quarterback Tom Brady responds to reports that the Patriots used deflated footballs in the AFC Championship Game.”

-- ABC World News Tonight: “On this Thursday night, the breaking news, the scandal before the Super Bowl. The star quarterback, Tom Brady, answering the question: Are you a cheater? Tonight, how Brady explains those deflated footballs, who handled them after they were handled by the refs, and what now for the football star with the supermodel wife?”

Was Inflate-gate really the day’s most important story? I fully understand that NFL rules require that game balls be inflated to between 12.5 and 13.5 PSI.

But is the fact that 11 footballs were under-inflated by 2 psi each, more important for the American people than the stories itemized above?

For starters, is anybody really claiming New England beat Indianapolis because balls were under-inflated?

The Patriots won the stupid game 45-7! Was it under-inflated balls that made it possible for Legatee Blount to run through the Colts for 145 yards? Or was it superior blocking, or inferior tackling?
Then again, if the idea of under-inflating a football is to make it easier to grip, what’s the big deal?

In wet weather the refs wipe the ball off and cover it with a towel to make it easier to grip. They bring dry balls into the game!

Quarterbacks use hand-warmers to warm their hands.

At least six quarterbacks -- not to mention almost all the wide receivers -- use special tacky gloves. Indeed Nike advertises their gloves as “Magnigrip CL palms with Nike graphics for superior tack and grip in all conditions.” Superior tack means they are sticky.

So, at a time when the whole Middle East is blowing up, and at a time when the sundry Muslim factions are murdering anyone who dares to disagree with their faction’s, views, why are the major networks -- and even Fox! -- wasting air time with Inflate-gate?

To borrow a phrase from our illustrious erstwhile  Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, “What difference does it make?”

Of course, if a properly inflated football really is a significant matter of world  news, why can’t each team select 12 balls of their choice (as is presently being done), give them to the refs, and then have the refs randomly put the balls in play without reference to whom supplied them?

That way if there is a significant  advantage to using an under-inflated ball, there will be a 50-50 chance that that advantage might acrue to the other team.

And maybe the networks will focus on real news.

Posted: Sunday, February 1, 2015 12:10 am - Quad-Cities Online
By John Donald O'Shea


Copyright 2015
John Donald O'Shea

Gruber Uncovers Obamacare "Shell Game"

Are you one of those “stupid” American voters who trusted President Obama and the Democrats in Congress to provide health insurance for 39 million uninsured Americans at no additional cost to the American people?

Do you recall President Obama saying, “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future. ... Period.” (youtube.com/watch?v=NCSrP44QgZ4)

My daughter’s private medical insurance costs roughly $4,000 per year. Assume, arguendo, that the government can somehow provide comparable insurance at one-fourth of that cost. If 39 million uninsured people now have coverage under Obamacare, and each policy costs $1,000, the annual cost of providing that insurance is $39 billion.

Where is that $39 billion coming from? It can only add to the deficit, if it is borrowed. Therefore, to avoid borrowing, it must be paid in taxes. Did the president tell the American people that? Did he mention Obamacare for the uninsured would be paid for by taxes on those who had already paid for their health insurance? By taxes on some existing insurance policies? By taxes on medical devices? Or by other hidden taxes?

In October of 2013, at a panel discussion at Pennsylvania University,  Jonathan Gruber made the following remarks:

“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure [the Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. OK? So it’s written to do that.

“In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which said healthy people are going to pay in -- you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money -- it would not have passed. OK?

“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to [obfuscate to] get the thing to pass.

“Look, I wish ... we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.”

Who is Jonathan Gruber? In November 2014, here is who President Obama said he is: “some adviser who never worked on our staff [who] expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with.”

But was the president being any more honest here than he was when he said the country could insure 39 million people without increasing the deficit? Was he intentionally understating Gruber’s influence on Obamacare  to distance himself from Professor Gruber --— just as he had earlier distanced himself from his pastor of 20 years, the Rev. Wright?

Here are the president’s 2006 remarks before the Brookings Institute: “You have already drawn some of the brightest minds from academia and policy circles. Many of them I have stolen ideas from liberally, ... [including] Jon Gruber.”

According to the Tampa Bay Times fact-check article, “Gruber visited the White House a dozen times from 2009-10, according to visitor logs. This included a July 20, 2009, meeting with Obama.

“According to a 2011 NBC news story, Obama or his staff sat down a dozen times during 2009 with three different people who helped advise Romney’s health care overhaul in Massachusetts, including Gruber.

“‘The White House wanted to lean a lot on what we’d done in Massachusetts,’ Gruber told NBC News in 2011.  ‘They really wanted to know how we can take that same approach we used in Massachusetts and turn that into a national model.’

“Gruber also had meetings with many of the heavyweights on Obama’s economic and health care staff: Peter Orszag, then the director of the Office of Management and Budget; Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council; Jason Furman, the deputy director of the National Economic Council; and Jeanne Lambrew, the director of the Office of Health Reform for the Department of Health and Human Services.”

The Tampa Bay Times concludes that Mr. Obama’s Novemeber 2014 dismissive remarks about Gruber as, “some adviser who never worked on our staff,” were mostly false.

“By HHS’ own documentation, Gruber was considered ‘uniquely positioned’ for a contract job assisting with Obama’s health care reform efforts. ... [H]e was a very important adviser.

“Further, while Gruber never worked ‘’on our staff,’’ he was paid by the federal government quite handsomely, and worked very closely with the staff. ... He also met with Obama in the White House and had a dozen meetings that often included some of the most senior members of Obama’s economic and health care teams.”

Telling the American people that we can provide free insurance for 39 million uninsured people without adding  “one dime to our deficits” was a half-truth -- as well as a half-lie. It was bait-and-switch. Slight-of-hand. The president’s remarks were made to gain the support of gullible Americans too “stupid (Gruber’s words!) to realize there is no such thing as a free lunch.

The president gulled the gullible by focusing the attention of Gruber’s stupid Americans on the pea -- the deficit -- while concealing tax increases under the shells.

Gruber is being honest when he says. “This bill was written in a tortured” way to make sure the CBO didn’t score taxes as taxes. And Gruber was being honest when stated that if “you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money -- it would not have passed.”

Are you one of Gruber’s stupid American voters who trusted  President Obama and the Democrats in Congress to provide health insurance for 39 million uninsured Americans a no additional cost to the American people?

And by the way: the CBO in October of 2014 revised its forecast saying that Obamacare will increase the deficit by $100 billion over the next decade!

Posted: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 12:00 am

By John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2015 John Donald O'Shea 

Nation Cannot Afford Return to the "Blood Feud"

We have a judicial system in America. It was fashioned and put in place by men conversant with Greek, Roman, Germanic and Canon law -- men who preferred the English common law to the Inquisition. Men who made a deliberate choice that the jury system was the best system developed over 2,500 years to safeguard the liberties of the individual.

Now a segment of our society claims to have no faith in our system of justice and resorts to mob rule.

The mobs in Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere are still furious. They refuse to accept grand jury refusals to indict police officers in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases. The protesters instead have made up their own minds that the officers acted without justification and that the grand juries involved were corrupt.

Some demand that Attorney General Eric Holder and his U.S. Justice Department intervene and prosecute the officers involved for Civil Rights violations  -- even if the evidence indicates no racial motivation. Other “peaceful protesters” -- in the course of their “peaceful” protests --  have burgled, looted and burned the business properties of their entirely innocent neighbors in Ferguson. Still others have cluttered the streets of New York, chanting “What do we want? Dead cops!”

Here is a summary of the evidence the grand jury heard the Brown case (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown):

“Wilson’s DNA ... was found on Brown’s left palm. Brown’s DNA was found on the left thigh of Wilson’s pants, on the [officer’s] gun, and on the inside driver’s door handle of Wilson’s police SUV, the result of Brown’s blood spilled staining Wilson’s pants and the door handle. ...

“Documents released after the grand jury proceedings show that Wilson washed blood from his hands and checked his own gun into an evidence bag. ...

“Dr. Michael Graham, the St. Louis medical examiner, said blood was found on Wilson’s gun and inside the car, and tissue from Brown was found on the exterior of the driver’s side of Wilson’s vehicle, both of which were consistent with a struggle at that location.

“According to Judy Melinek, a San Franciscan pathologist, the official autopsy, which stated Brown’s hand had foreign matter consistent with a gun discharge on it, supported Wilson’s testimony that Brown was reaching for the weapon, or indicating the gun was inches away from Brown’s hand when it went off.

Three autopsies were performed on Brown’s body, with all three noting that Brown had been shot at least six times, including twice in the head, with no shots in his back.”

Imagine if police officers reacted the same way. Recently two New York City policemen were murdered, while sitting in their squad cars. Assume that their murderer, rather than committing suicide, had been arrested, tried and found not guilty. Would the N.Y. police have been justified in looting and burning neighborhood  businesses? Would you approve their marching and chanting, “What do we want? Dead criminals!”

A day doesn’t go by when a policeman isn’t required to break up a bar fight. And while the police are rarely killed dealing with drunks, the officers are frequently hurt. Often seriously. In most cases the assailant is arrested, charged with aggravated battery and prosecuted. But what happens when the police believe the defendant deserves prison time, and the judge imposes probation? The injured officer and his coworkers may not feel that “justice” was done. But they certainly don’t burn down neighborhoods, loot buildings and call for the killing of the thug who got probation.

In America, believe it or not, you do not have a constitutional right to loot liquor stores. You do not have a right to burn businesses because you perceive that you have been the victim of past injustice.

In Greece, 2,500 years ago, the Greek playwright Aeschyluis wrote tragedies. His play “The Eumenides,” deals with two very different systems of justice. The Goddess Athena has brought to the city of Athens a new system of criminal justice.

Under her new system the defendant’s guilt or innocence is determined by a jury of 12. Orestes, who has killed his mother because she had murdered his father, flees to Athens to escape the revenge of the “Furies.”

The Furies (aka, “The Erinyes”) --— the more ancient gods -- pursue Orestes to Athens. Under their more ancient law, the Furies, demand “blood for blood;” Orestes, the matricide, must pay for his mother’s blood with his own. When the jury splits, six for conviction, and six for acquittal, and when Athena herself breaks the deadlock, casting the deciding vote for acquittal, the Furies are outraged, and rage:

“Gods of the younger generation, you have ridden down the laws of the elder time, torn them out of my hands. I, disinherited, suffering, heavy with anger shall let loose on the land the vindictive poison dripping deadly out of my heart upon the ground; this from itself shall breed cancer.”

Our justice system is not perfect. Nothing human is. But it’s the best Americans have been able to devise. As Justice  Oliver Wendell Holmes states in “The Common Law,” “The earliest forms of legal procedure were grounded in vengeance. ... Roman Law started from the blood feud .... German law began that way.”

Justice Holmes states that Roman and Germanic law sought an alternative, the “composition”  -- that is, “damages” -- paid to buy-off the blood feud.

America has a choice. It can seek justice within our system of justice, or it can return to the vengeance of the blood feud --  the vengeance  of the Furies.

But recall: our system provides not only criminal remedies, but civil remedies for money damages, as well. The next of kin of Brown and Garner can sue for wrongful death and seek money damages. And if they do, they only have to prove that it is more likely than not that the officers involved used excessive force. If the physical evidence and witnesses do indeed support their claims, winning should be easy.

If not, then their only remedy appears to be to ignore the facts and howl for vengeance.

Posted: Saturday, January 10, 2015 12:00 am
By John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2015 John Donald O'Shea

Why Didn't Police Use Deadly Force to Stop Looting?

Have you wondered why the police did nothing to stop the arson, burglary and looting of the mob in Ferguson, Mo? Have you wondered why police did not use deadly force to suppress the riots there?

Under the English common law, police were authorized to use deadly force to prevent the commission of a felony, or prevent the escape of a person who had committed the felony. At the same time, under the common law, deadly force could not be used against misdemeanants, except in the case of riot, but even then only after the rioters had been ordered to disperse.

This is why when Major John Pitcairn upon reaching Lexington (April 1775) and finding the colonials, in what he perceived to be an “unlawful armed assembly,” ordered the colonials assembled  to "Lay down your arms, you ... rebels, and disperse!” He was “reading them the riot act.”

But in England before the American Revolution, almost all felonies were punishable by death. That obviously is no longer the case. In Illinois today, for example, crimes such as theft, burglary and robbery no longer carry the death penalty, and are generally punished by imprisonment or by some form of probation.

The leading case on use of deadly force by a police officer is the U.S. Supreme Court's Tennessee v. Garner (1985). In that case, a Memphis police officer, responding to a burglary call, ordered the fleeing suspect to halt. When the suspect ignored the command and continued his flight, the officer shot and killed him.

The officer used deadly force despite being "reasonably sure" the suspect was an unarmed 17- or 18- year-old of slight build. Tennessee v. Garner was a civil case for damages brought by the father of the boy shot by the officer.

The Tennessee statute in question provided that "if, after notice of the intention to arrest (has been communicated by the officer), the defendant either flees or forcibly resists arrest, the officer may use all the necessary means to effect the arrest."

The Supreme Court first held that using deadly force to prevent escape implicates the Fourth Amendment. That Amendment provides the American people with the right “to be secure in their persons against unreasonable seizures. The court then explained:

"Whenever an officer restrains the freedom of a person to walk away, he has seized that person. ... There can be no question that apprehension by the use of deadly force is a seizure subject to the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment."

Based on that logic, the court next limited the police officers right to use deadly force, holding: “If the suspect threatens the officer with a weapon or there is probable cause to believe that he has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm, deadly force may be used if necessary to prevent escape, and if, where feasible, some warning has been given.”

Given that holding, the reason rioters were allowed to run amok in Ferguson is obvious.

Rioters shown in the news videos were not “threatening police officers with weapons.” And unless there were people present in the businesses being looted and burned, looting and arson did not  “involve the infliction or threaten infliction of serious physical harm.” In short, deadly force would only have been justified if the police had interposed themselves between the mob and the buildings to protect the businesses, and if persons in the mob had first used or threatened deadly force against the officers.

But why put yourself in position to be killed by a mob? And if the police had responded to the mob’s use of deadly force with their own use of deadly force, even if 100 percent justified, what guarantees did the police have that the U.S. Department of Justice would not impanel a federal grand jury to investigate their violation of the mob’s civil rights?

Would the mob have been persuaded that the police officers’ response to the mob’s use of deadly force was justified? Or would the mob have chanted as the NY mobs did, “What do we want? Dead cops!” And then of course, the officers would have been sued civilly by the relatives of dead mob members for wrongful death.

So the police backed off and let the looters have at it. After all, it was only someone else’s property that was destroyed or stolen.

So, is looting and burning of businesses, and chanting “kill cops,” constitutionally protected freedom of expression? Peaceful assembly? I don’t think so. If it is, then the cops and anybody who opposes the looters should be able to chant, “kill looters,” and loot and burn down the homes of the looters.

If it’s fair for you to burn down and loot my business, why doesn’t equal protection guarantee me the right to loot and burn yours?

Posted: Saturday, January 3, 2015 12:00 am
By John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2015 John Donald O'Shea

"CAN "ENHANCED INTERROGATION" BE USED FOR SELF-DEFENSE?

Democrats in the U.S. Senate have just issued a report equating the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT) with torture.

The report states water boarding resulted in physical harm, including vomiting and seizures to at least some of the prisoners, and in one instance, death. It asserts that the CIA mismanaged the operation, kept poor records, and gave inadequate and inaccurate information to the Bush administration, to Congress and to the press.

The report claims that the information given by the terrorists under the EIT was inaccurate and worthless, and that the program has damaged the reputation of the U.S.

Those who minimize the findings, claim Democrat Senate staffers who prepared it spoke only to the attorneys representing the Gitmo detainees, and not to the the CIA agents involved.  I do not intend to address that issue.

For me, the real question is whether the U.S. is ever justified in using EIT.

Many who oppose enhanced interrogation, like Sen. John McCain, label it torture. But the intent is different. There is no claim the CIA used EIT with intent to punish or to wantonly inflict pain -- that is “to torture.” Clearly the goal was to extract information to prevent a second 9/11 and save American lives.

Additionally, EIT can take many  forms.  At one end of the spectrum, enhanced interrogation includes sleep deprivation, irksome music, putting the prisoner in a cramped box, or a chilly or hot room, etc.  At the other end  -- the torture end -- EIT would include the ripping out of fingernails, the rack, cutting off fingers, toes, arms and legs, roasting over hot coals, etc. Some forms of enhanced interrogation do not kill or maim the prisoner; others do.

Would it ever be right for the U.S. to engage in the more brutal forms of enhanced interrogation? If we can cut off a prisoner’s fingers, arms and legs, and roast him over hot coals, it would seem to follow bugging him with gangster-rap music would also be permissible.

The question is not as easy to answer as you might first believe. There are three good main reasons most reasonable Americans oppose torture.

-- First, a person being tortured might lie and say whatever his interrogator wants him to say to avoid further torture.

-- Second, America does not torture its prisoners of war because it hopes the enemy will act accordingly.

-- Finally, America doesn’t torture out of respect for the human person.

That being said, the question remains, why is it worse to torture a prisoner than to kill him with a drone strike? To fire bomb his cities? To kill his countrymen with nuclear bombs?

The CIA’s enhanced interrogation all occurred after the 9/11 attacks on our country to forestall subsequent attacks. But would the CIA have been justified in using torture in its most rigorous form in the hours before the 9/11 attacks occurred to prevent those attacks?

You will recall that on Sept. 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaida Islamic terrorists hijacked four civilian airliners. Two were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. A third was flown into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

All the civilians aboard the four airliners were murdered in the crashes or resulting fires. At the Pentagon, 125 military and civilian personnel were murdered. At the Trade Center and in the nearby vicinity, nearly 3, 000 people were brutally murdered; including 343 firefighters and paramedics, and 23  police officers. Only six people in the towers at the time of their collapse survived. Some 10,000 were injured; many severely. Others contracted cancer from what they inhaled that day.

So,  what if 24 hours before the 9/11 attacks our CIA had captured a major al-Qaida operative, who  boasted, “Twenty-four hours from now, we will teach America a lesson it will never forget!”? And what if in response to CIA normal interrogation, the operative had told his interrogators, “You’ll find out soon enough!”?

Would the CIA have been justified in water-boarding him? Ripping out his nails to force him to talk? Or would it had been better to terminate the interrogation, and wait 24 hours until the planes had destroyed the towers and wantonly murdered more than 3,000 Americans?

What if my hypothetical al-Qaida operative under torture had talked and the attacks had been thwarted?  Would the Iraq war have been avoided? The Afghan war? How many American soldiers would be alive today? How many would have avoided wounds that have destroyed their quality of life, and crushed their families.

I don’t like torture. But I have always felt that the assassination of Adolf Hitler would have been justified to prevent World War II, and the millions of deaths caused by Hitler and his war.

Similarly, if the Iraq and Afghan wars would have been avoided by preventing 9/11, torturing my hypothetical operative would have been morally justified. (Self-defense does not always require that the assailant be killed!)

To paraphrase the Catechism of the Catholic Church: The legitimate defense of societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. The act of self-defense, including non-lethal forms of self-defense, can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s nation; and the killing or extracting information from of the aggressor. “The one is intended, the other is not.”

Homicide can be murder or self-defense. It depends upon the intent.

Enhanced interrogation can be torture or a legitimate act of self-defense.

Again, it depends upon the intent.

Posted Online:  Dec, 20, 2014 12:00 am - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea

Can a Minimum Wage Hike Help the Unemployed?

Chicago will increase its minimum wage to $13 per hour. This is obviously good for those who will see their wages rise to $13. But what about those who are unemployed?

Minimum wage laws are nothing more than attempts to amend “the law of supply and demand.”

There is a reason Giancarlo Stanton was given a 13-year $325 million contract ($25 million a year) to hit a baseball by the Florida Marlins. He does it in a way that only a handful of people on this planet can do it. And a great many people are willing to pay big bucks to see him do it. The Marlins were not compelled by any minimum wage law to offer Stanton this contract. They did it voluntarily because they thought Stanton’s drawing power would produces revenues in excess of the cost.

But what if the Marlins had opted not to pay Stanton his $325 million? Could they have signed an equivalent player for substantially less? What if the Marlin’s had offered to pay Stanton $7.93, the Florida minimum wage? Do you think he would have signed? Would any other equivalent player who hit about .288, with 37 home runs and 105 RBIs sign for $7.93 per hour?

It is not an easy thing to hit major league pitching. Very few people can hit fastballs that come to the plate at 95 mph, sliders that look life fastballs until they break at the last minute, and change-ups that leave the pitcher’s hand looking like a fastball, but come up to the plate about 10 mph slower.

Michael Jordan was one of the greatest athletes America has ever known. He tried baseball for one year in 1994. He managed to hit .202 with 1 home run at Class AA Birmingham! Last year in the majors, out of roughly 750 players, only 29 hit .288 or better; only 11 hit 30 homers or more.

But regardless of what Giancarlo Stanton is paid, that has no effect whatever on teacher salaries.

There is a reason why teachers start at disproportionately smaller salaries. There are far more people who want employment as teachers than there are available teaching positions. All applicants have the required education and licenses.

Presumably,  they can all do the job. But nobody is willing to buy a $100 ticket to see them teach.

According to a January 2014 Program Evaluation report, the average starting salary for an Illinois teacher is about $36,636 annually. And according to USA Today (Feb. 19, 2013), “The nation is training twice as many K-5 elementary school teachers as needed each year, while teacher shortages remain in the content specific areas of math, science and special education.

“Illinois trained roughly 10 teachers for every one position available.”

But what would happen to starting teacher salaries if there were 100 positions that needed filling, and only 25 teachers seeking employment? Because demand would exceed supply, there would be a bidding war, and salaries would go up to attract the best and brightest.

There is a reason Walmart and McDonald’s can pay $10 per hour. There are a great many more workers who want jobs than there are jobs. When there are 100 people willing to work at $10 per hour, Walmart can ignore the retired $100K executive who is willing to work at $25 per hour, and hire from the pool of 100.

When the minimum wage is increased, the Walmarts, as well as small businesses, have choices to make. They can

-- Pay the new increased minimum wage, “eat” the increased cost of doing business, and accept a diminution of net profits:

-- Pay the new increased minimum wage to some workers, and hold down costs by discharging other workers, or

-- Pay the new increased minimum wage and pass the cost on to customers.

What happens when a business is operating on a tight margin and doesn’t believe it can pass its increased labor costs on to customers? If it can’t risk increasing its costs, it has two options:

-- Fire enough workers to offset the increased cost of labor for others, or

-- Go out of business.

Of course. it can risk doing business as a loss; but why?

According to Forbes (Feb. 20, 2012), the “unemployment number ... reported at 6.2 percent ...  is simply misleading.  ... According to the U-6 report, the ‘real; unemployment rate is 12.6 oercent,” which includes those who have not looked for work during the four weeks.

But in the black community, Newsmax stated on Nov. 27,  the unemployment rate is worse: 11 percent  and for young black men (ages 16-21),  21 percent.

So what happens, when the president issues an executive order granting work permits to 5 million illegal immigrants? How many of those will be competing for the minimum wage jobs that are out there?

How does flooding the labor market with 5 million illegal immigrants help the 12.6 percent of Americans and the 21 percent of young black American males who can’t find employment? Increasing the supply of unemployed workers by 5 million only guarantees employers a larger pool to pick from, and it removes pressure for them to pay better wages.

A far better plan, would be for the government to work to create a job market where there are more jobs than applicants. If Walmart and McDonald’s need 1,000 workers, and there are only 100 available, wages will increase and no minimum wage law will be needed. The law of supply and demand will do the job better than any minimum wage law ever could.

Flooding our job market by providing illegal immigrants with work permits only increases the worker supply while at the same time driving down wages.

President Obama’s executive order will only exacerbate America’s unemployment situation!

Posted Online:  Dec, 6, 2014 12:00 am - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea