Leaving on a jet plane...

We are packed and ready to fly to Denver tonight after we check out for the school year. The kids are released at 11 am then we have a staff lunch & get-together until 3ish. Then our flight leaves at 6pm and we arrive in the mile-high city around 11:30pm.

Sarah's wedding is Saturday at 5pm and we come home Tuesday morning...can't wait to get out of the heat! I checked the weather forecast for the next 3 days...84, 81, & 74...Yeah!! Sure beats the 100, 101, 100 forecast for Yuma!

I'll post all the news & photos when we get back...

End of the Year!

I sit here today in my class and look at my 25 students who, in many ways, were my Guinea pigs as I learned (very quickly!) what works and doesn't work in a classroom.

They were an awesome bunch & I became very attached to them. I will miss them...something I did not foresee when I began teaching last fall.

The bright side is that I am moving to the sixth grade next year and with our rotating subject program (I will teach writing/language arts to all 3 sixth grade classes) I will see most of them again.

I have found my calling and I finally enjoy what I do for my living...now I need to figure out how to survive on the wages paid to educators!

There's always another mountain to climb...

On the Iraq War

Hi Phil!

Don’t worry about the time it takes to get back to me…my time is yours! Besides…I am pretty much done with the school year and am not working this summer so I have plenty of time to work on my golf handicap & debate you whenever you get back to me…no rush.

I enjoyed response…a couple of those shots drew blood…nice! I started gentle but now I am warming up!

Topic: Iraq

You are right, WMD & AQ were just the excuses Bush gave us to try to reshape the Middle East into a pro-west & peaceful region. That is the greatest fallacy of all…expecting to reshape the Middle East into something acceptable to the West is idiotic.

I can more than take a look at a map my friend…I can understand how that map came to be…

Iraq, known as Mesopotamia for centuries, was the cradle of civilization and the origin of writing & the wheel. Throughout its long history, Iraq has been the center of the Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Abbasid empires, and was a conquered part of the Achaemenid, Macedonian, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Mongol, Ottoman and British empires.

The British cobbled together the Sunni, Shia, & Kurdish regions into the country of Iraq in the 1910’s to try to establish a stable mandate to allow for the extraction of oil. The British set up 3 different failed regimes and finally left in disarray in 1947. When the British left, Iraq passed from one failed regime to another until Hussein was the 6th regime to come to power in 1979.

To believe that we can invade and set up a democracy in this country in anything less than decades shows a contemptible lack of historical knowledge and foresight.

The one major accomplishment we have attained since we invaded Iraq in 2003 was to allow Iran to become the regional powerhouse…free to pursue its own agenda because everyone in the world knows we cannot invade Iran too…we do not have the military resources to fight a third major combat action in the Middle East.

How do we win this global war on terror? Define victory and how we get there…in measurable steps please. I don’t think you can…which is dangerous territory for a democracy to fight a war on. The United States has always been successful in wars because we entered and left when we had achieved clearly-stated goals.

This is the paradox of terrorism…a huge nation like the US can’t “win” it…because there is no standing army to defeat or territory to conquer.

The best way to achieve peace in our time is to reduce our demand for oil…the real reason for us being there. Before Desert Storm we had 9 Islamic terrorist attacks against the west in 30 years…roughly 1 every 3 years. In the 10 years between 1991 and 2001, after the Saudis gave us permanent basing rights, we had 31 attacks in 10 years…roughly 1 every 4 months.

I admit that the United States will always be a target of radical Islamists…but their ranks and ability to recruit will be reduced if we remove the large Western military presence in the Middle East.

You touched on the most over-looked fact of the Iraq debate…the withdrawal has to happen because our military, namely the army, is at the breaking point. We cannot sustain the troops in Iraq indefinitely…unless you go to 18 or 24 month deployments. Even then, sustaining the war on a material level is becoming a huge issue.

The old saying goes that only a fool throws good money after bad. The surge is over and the monthly civilian deaths are slowly starting to rise, increasing every month since February.

Choosing to exit from an unwinnable situation is not weakness, it is prudence. Going down in a blaze of glory might make for a wonderful John Wayne movie and be very appealing to a military man such as you but it does not serve the interests of America.

No, I do not take estrogen before I vote…I simply put on my strap-on, that’s all. Do you have to read the bible and beat a minority before you vote? ;-)

Hope you had a wonderful Memorial Day you damn redneck!

I look forward to our next topic…Jon

P.S. Thanks for all you do and give your men a big thank you from your favorite Democrat…

Phil's Response

Here is my best bud's somewhat sarcastic response...I love a good discussion with some nastiness thrown in ;-)....


My brother,
Sorry for the delay in the response. I must commend you for some well thought out responses which is more then I can say for some of the idiots that address these issues using only generalities and platitudes which creates more frustration then progress. It is fitting that we are having this conversation especially since it has been brought to the national spot light. The over all theme is national security and the Global War on Terror (which by they way here at the DoD, we can not use that term any longer, so much for calling it what the fuck it is, a gentler over tone)

Topic: Iraq
You and I will differ on if Iraq was justified and necessary, libs can not seem to divorce themselves from this (unjust war, we were lied to, ect) see WMD and AQ ties was not the primary reasons we went to Iraq, just look at the map and you can see why Iraq was necessary! The ability to influence our enemies, come on my young strategist have you forgotten your war game days. I do not delineate between the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and Iraq, see they are one in the same. Timing sucked but I will stand by the fact that it was the right war just the wrong time. What I do not understand is why there are those that can't seem to stomach it, weakness seems to permeate throughout the Democrats. It was the dems that got us here with the impotent responses of the Clinton administration and this is my worst fear that our leaders will be impotent once again, and we will loose lives once again. Yes my brother you are witness to a historic victory, surely you know that history tells us that it normally takes 9 years to win or lose a Counter Insurgency. So what the fuck, we have only been fighting in Iraq since 2003 and look at where we are now, this bitch is nearly won. I am not sure you and I are looking at the same conflict. You use words like "our failures" and "untenable" your conclusions are flawed and misguided. My first deployment in 04 was shitty and my second in 05 was worse, however my final deployment in 07 I witnessed something I thought I would never see. It was a meeting that we held where no shit mayors, legitimate Iraqi Police chiefs, Sheiks, and a legitimate Iraqi Army Bn Cmdr convened. This meeting was my capstone, the agenda included "every day things" as they pertained to governance, economic, infrastructure, and security. See 7 months before that meeting, Iraqi Police where getting beheaded, and the mayor was in constant danger, but at the end we were talking about night soccer ball tournaments and make sure our snipers would not shoot the ball players. Progress, metrics, and tangible success. Now, I will not generalize Iraq, you cant, I do not know about the condition in Baghdad, but that is the problem, the conflict is too dynamic and complex for the folks here at home to fully understand it (not that they would fucking want to, that would cut into important things like, what dog is the Pres going to buy). Buy your own admission "it takes time to build a democracy" then give us fucking time. There is no commitment, why dishonor the fallen by not accomplishing the mission. This is a clash of our two cultures, for me it is about honor and not defeat, this may sound mellow dramatic but to suggest to me that pulling out and let the Iraqis deal with it before they are ready is bullshit. AQ is not going to cause "chaos' why would they we are leaving, like the Muj in Afgan during the Soviet era, let them go. Once we bounce then the true test will come, if Iraq fails, my brother your worst nightmares will come true. Victory is there and trust me, dealing with Iraqis brings its own challenge, no we do not and must not be there forever. What the fuck is the administration going to do if we pull the plug to early, Eloquently say" I am sorry" and redeploy forces to recover ground that we already had. I am not going to get my panties to much in bunch over this, because the conditions are already set for the turn over (boys are getting bored over there now which is a good thing), and not because of our current leadership, the fuckers haven't done nothing yet. It just speaks to a mindset and an agenda that reeks with weakness and absolutely no resolve. Ok my brother this is the first of a few more emails, next topic: National Security, GITMO, and that terrible, terrible water boarding tech, oh my we are such barbarians, fucking Democrats, (do they have to take estrogen pills before they vote?)
Have a good weekend professor
Phil

My response to Phil

Hi Phil!

It was good to catch up…so nice of you to call on my birthday ;-)…I am glad to hear you voted in the last election…somebody needed to vote for McCain, after all! Seriously, I think it is vital that everyone gets his or her say…especially after living in a Republican-dominated decade.

Here we go on your questions:

Why a time line to withdraw from Iraq?

I realize that a timeline presents an excellent opportunity for Al Qaeda and others to create chaos in Iraq. I think you have to evaluate and conclude we made a mistake entering Iraq. We can debate that conclusion if you choose but we obviously strategically and tactically failed to create a safe environment for our sponsored government to become self-sustaining in the years after we invaded.

Because of this failure, we have an untenable position. The tactical surge was successful by locking down parts of the country, particularly Baghdad. The strategic surge failed because Maliki’s government can’t easily solve the lopsided Shite majority. Democracy can’t foster overnight…it took us decades to form the solid 3-branch system we have now.

So, where does that leave us? No one can guarantee success. You think we can be successful if we do not waver. I think it’s foolish to continue spending money and lives on a situation where the end objective is so speculative and elusive. Neither of us can know nor quantify which is right.

In short, we have done what we can to clean up our mess…its time that Iraq determines Iraq’s future.

Why must we apologize for our actions...which I am seeing time and time again?

I think America is the greatest nation on Earth…and FDR through Obama have sung our praises and criticized regimes and governments worldwide that did not live up to our idea of personal freedoms for all and a government for the people & by the people.

9/11 changed it all for many of us. We felt that we had been wronged (we were!) and that the end justified the means (it doesn’t!). In doing so I think we lost sight of what makes us great…that we do hold ourselves to a higher standard and we are not just another country…we are America & we protect the innocent and abused of the world.

The rest of the world viewed our actions after 9/11 first with respect…the entire world supported our invasion of Afghanistan…and then with disdain while we bullied and threatened our allies into supporting our invasion of Iraq. After the WMD fiasco and Abu Gharib disclosure then the world finds out we violated our own citizens’ rights through data mining and finally Gitmo to handle those we do not “rendition” to other countries for torture and interrogation.

The world mocks us for preaching to it for decade after decade…just to throw all that righteous talk out the window when we were thumped on the nose. No nation, not even the U.S., can go it alone. I think we need to get the world back on our side so that we can effectively fight terrorism and rebuild our reputation.

Forgiveness and progress starts with an apology…or several…

Why shut down Gitmo?

Let me answer this with another question…why was Gitmo selected? Why hold the detainees on federal property outside of the United States? For a simple reason…to avoid due process for those held.

Here are the highlights:

· Since October 7, 2001, when the current war in Afghanistan began, 775 detainees have been brought to Guantánamo. Of these, approximately 420 have been released without charge. As of January 2009, approximately 245 detainees remain.
· Three have been convicted of various charges
· Of those still incarcerated, U.S. officials said they intend to eventually put 60 to 80 on trial and free the rest.

In simple math, that is a 0.4 % conviction rate…if the U.S. successfully convicts the max 80 they say they intend to charge (unlikely) then the Government’s conviction rate would jump to 10.7%

In contrast, the federal government enjoys a 92% conviction rate in federal trials on the mainland.

Finally, 54% of those originally detained have been released with no charges and when Gitmo is closed a whopping 89% of original detainees will have been released after YEARS of incarceration.

Here’s the scary part…we are talking military tribunals that these detainees could have been tried in…where obviously the defendant has limited rights compared to a traditional criminal trial.

The math leads one to conclude that many of these individuals were detained with little or no evidence and that is the crux of the problem with Gitmo…how do we not lose ourselves in the fight for terror?

We must have a system for handling those that would harm America in a time of war…I don’t have a problem with military tribunals…but there must be some process for these individuals to be proven guilty…you can’t just lock up someone for years based on the testimony of low-ranking military troops that saw something suspicious in the field.

This is the paradox of terrorism…you must change an open & free society in order to successfully combat the terrorists. The good of the many outweigh the good of the few is fine in theory but the devil is in the details…

Why are politicians getting involved with interrogation tech?

We are not a military dictatorship. The key to a successful democracy is that the public is aware of what the government is doing in a broad sense. I am not naïve enough to believe that there the government doesn’t have all kinds of secret things going on…but these things should not be done at the expense of our principles.

Therefore…the military will always be supervised by civilians…rightfully so!!

What is this inherent distain for the former Pres as it relates specifically to the prosecution and execution on the war on terror?

I think many disdain Bush for a couple of reasons. First, he was obstinate to the point of idiocy. He had clear convictions and stood by them no matter what. He was so inflexible that his white house argued over a year on the exact definition of an insurgency…instead of admitting that Iraq was a cluster-fuck and that we needed to change.

He painted himself into a righteous & absolute corner on so many issues that to admit he was wrong made him admit he was ignorant…so he kept on into the breach…no matter what. For example, his “Brownie…you’re doing a hell of a job!”…as thousands had no food or water in New Oreleans. I think respect is earned and people would have cut him some slack if he just admitted that he fucked up…and fucked up…and fucked upJ. The scary part is I think he believed he was right no matter what!

Secondly, I think he was not inclusive. He felt that because he was elected and had a majority in congress that he did not have to compromise. He did not attempt to deal in measure at all…always the absolute. This works if you stay successful…and creates more disdain as you struggle…which he did in his second term.

Thank God GW was our Pres after 9-11…Good Lord!! He set this country back 50 years!! He was a country bumpkin…did you know he had never left the United States before he was elected?! Talk about a learned man…come on!!!

Anyway…here is my long-winded response…I was gentle this round…I am interested to see your thoughts on my opinions…until then, Jon

Knotts Berry Farm...

Alexis being camera shy...

That's my big head further up the bus...

So I spent this last Thursday and Friday in California as a chaperon for our school's sixth grade field trip. Tammy went on the trip but hardly spent time with me...she much preferred her friends to dear old dad...I remember those days well...hoping your parents didn't do anything embarrassing...

I was in charge of 5 boys and we even got to spend the night together...it's funny how after being married so long you forget the awkwardness of a school road trip...especially when I had 25+ years on my roomies!

Overall the trip was a blast and I really enjoyed it...except...we stopped in El Centro late Friday night for dinner. El Centro is about 55 miles from Yuma and that is where the bus decided to break down. Instead of 10pm we finally arrived home around 2am Saturday morning...not good at all!!

Engaging questions

My friend Phillip sent me this email today and I am looking forward to engaging in a spirited debate....I guess some background on Phil would be in order for those of you that do not know him...

Phil & I have been best friends since the 4th grade when Mrs. Mestas suggested he be-friend me on my first day. Like any friendship, we have had our ups and downs but he is the one guy I would want at my back in a bar fight...period.

Phil likes to make you think he's a country bumpkin and not a thinker but it's an act...he's very intelligent and has strong convictions about the strength and well-being of our country.

Plus...he is not really touchy-feeley so I can be my edgy self and he doesn't take offense. I do often have trouble playing nice...


Jon,
Damn good to hear from you the other day. It sounds as if things are good and I must pay respect for your new found and profession (maybe even calling). (Look professor my spelling and grammar suck so lets hope I can shoot a weapon better then I can spell) Thus I was sitting there smoking a cigarette and I figured to take you up on your offer to educate me in the ways of the other side. I am open minded believe or not and I am even constrained to a point that I must respect to my current Commander in Chief hence any dialog should not be construde as me disrespecting my President. We all voted based on what was important to us at the time, or background, socio economic status, beliefs and the rest of it. See this is the first election I have ever voted in (embarrassing maybe) but I felt this was a critical time. I took the time to engage in debates and read up on the candidates in an effort to educate myself. At the end of the day what drove my final decision was to look closely at the candidate that could best lead us during a time of war and who in my mind rated to lead me. I was not happy with the out come. With that said help me figure out a couple of things:
1. Why a time line to withdraw from Iraq
2. Why must we apologize for our actions (The US) which I am seeing time and time again
3. Why shut down Gitmo
4. Why are politicians getting involved with interrogation tech
5. What is this inherent distain for the former Pres as it relates specifically to the prosecution and execution on the war on terror

These are just a few questions that I have for the other side. Finally, and this should really set you off, Thank God GW was our Pres after 9-11

Looking forward to the education, be brutal, I have a thick skin shit head.

Take care and let me know what is up for June
Phil

My other kids...

My boys...it was dress like the 80's days
My Girls...

My 5th grade class threw me a surprise birthday party last Friday & it was awesome...they got Mrs. Larson's class to come sing me a song and even had the Principal in on it...it was so cool.

I am really going to miss my kids ...although I will see them again since I am moving with them to sixth grade next year.

Anyway, it really touched my heart that they cared enough to do all that...they really do become a second family!

Another year older...

My birthday was this past Sunday...yes I had to share the day with Yesenia since it was Mother's Day...I was quite annoyed...

We had a great day...woke up late, went out for brunch, watched some golf on TV, & went over to my Mom & Dad's house for cake & ice cream.

I'm 37 now & am becoming alarmed at the steady approach of 40...not good!

Lousy golf tournament

As many of you know I am an avid golfer but have never played in a tournament. That changed last weekend when we played in benefit tournament for a local high school.

Steve, Loren, & I played with Thomas, a brother-in-law of Steve's from his late wife's side.

The good news was that we finished in 8th place...the bad news was that there were 8 teams total...yes I was a little tight...

An old friend...

I heard from Phillip Laing today...he's one of my 2 best friends from high school...great guy.

He's been in the Marines since we graduated and I think he's a major or colonel by now? Anyway I had an old email I address that I have been forwarding junk funnies to for the last couple of years and lo and behold I get this eloquent response yesterday...

Jon,

You legend you, give me your number and an apporiate time to call, you shit head.

Phil

Gotta love Phil...