I got a call from my son today. Billy is the son who was wounded in battle in Iraq just outside of Baghdad in 2006. He has shrapnel in his neck and shoulder, still. He has had surgery on his leg and it is well again. He is suffering from, and has been diagnosed with, Traumatic Brain injury (TBI). Consequently he now has a type of Tourette Syndrome and suffers from "tics", sort of involuntary jerks or sudden movements. I am happy I still have my son.

Anyway Billy called to tell me that he has been informed, by the Army Medical Board, that he is being retired with a 50% disability. My son understood the risks of being a career Army soldier. He had seen me serving in the Marines almost his whole live as a young man. It seemed a natural transition for him when he decided to make the Military his home. He also had the understanding that the Army too understood and accepted their responsibilities to him. That part hasn't worked out that well. Our President must not have factored in the cost of wounded soldiers when he let us borrow the money from China to wage war in Iraq.

America's Federal Government has plenty of armed / intelligence agencies today.

National Intelligence Agency (NIA)
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
The Treasury's United States Secret Service (USSS)
Department of Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms (ATF)
Transportation Security Agency (TSA)
The IRS armed enforcement branch, the Criminal Investigation Service (IRS-CIS)
U.S. Marshall Service (USMS)
National Security Counsel (NSC)
National Security Agency (NSA)
US Department of Immigration Naturalization (INS)
Department of Defense (DoD)
State Department Security (DSS)
There are at least ten other U.S. Government security agencies NOT listed here.
Security is not our problem. Never was.

Today Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shrugged off U.S. doubts of his government's military and political progress on Saturday, saying Iraqi forces are capable and American troops can leave "any time they want."  The Gulf between Iraq's Government and its American steering committee, headed by President G.W. Bush, is widening. The death and the chaos is having its effect on the occupied, as well as on the occupiers.  The U.S. patience with the Iraqi government's slow progress or lack of any progress at all, has grown thin and the Iraqi patience with the occupying American and British forces has seemingly come to an end as well.

A Reformation is a new morning, an improvement, a renovation or, restoration. I believe that America is on the verge of just such a new morning, a reformation. I admit to being an optimist, but I am also grounded in a lifetime of real experiences and having been present during many significant worldly events. Because I believe a Democrat will be elected in 2008, to replace President Bush, I feel a renewal to Americas commitment to human rights, justice and the return to checks and balances in our government is just on our political horizon and I am raring to see it happen and be part of its rebirth.

1.Suspend the Patriot Act and Detainee Bill for Congressional review.
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. "For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all". - H. L. Mencken

2.Deny any additional funding for US Combat roles in Iraq. (This will require the often absent backbone and integrity, but I feel we can do it)."Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare". Japanese proverb

3.Increase funding for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. They actually did facilitate an attack on our country. Osama Bin Laden is there, maybe.

4.Prohibit torture in any and all of its forms to include the President's approved "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques". "What we must face squarely is this: whenever we torture or mistreat prisoners, we are capitulating morally to the enemy-in fact, adopting the terrorist ethic that the end justifies the means." Rev. Kermit D. Johnson, Chaplain (Major General), U.S. Army (ret.)

Six Things that trouble me:
1.I am sorry that that Republicans and many Democrats venerate their party more than their country. Blind faith in any political, or government system is rarely healthy.

2.It appears that President Bush and the Republican Politicians have almost succeeded in convincing the American People that war is a good thing. How sad it was that our President chose to use our 9/11 tragedy as a tool for instilling fear and hatred in the American people.

3.I am saddened by the political division which has fallen on America due to the years of Presidential and Republican arrogance, dishonesty and failure to adhere to Democratic standards of conduct from 2000-2006.

Why America went into Iraq is something for the pundits, academics and the politicians to discuss into the next century. What has happened there since our arrival is something I can only hope will be fully realized and understood by the American public and every elected official in our country.

From my personal experiences of living in Iraq for three years, I have concluded America's leadership is solely responsible for the entire country of Iraq becoming a living hell of suffering, poverty, starvation and depravation, unimaginable to either Iraqi or U.S. citizen just prior to our arrival in Iraq in 2003.

I remember being in my 5th grade class at Sunset Elementary school in La Puente California when, one day in 1963, our School Principal, Mr. Hackleman, came into the room. He was sort of crying. He told us that our President, John F. Kennedy (JFK), had been mortally wounded in Dallas Texas. He sent us home.

As the next few years went by, we were all taught about the greatness of John F. Kennedy and how he had a dream for America where we would all be free and happy, where all Americans would enjoy the fullness of liberty promised to us by our U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.