Guest Commentary by Dan Jorgensen

Bring Our Boys & Girls Home! I've had enough. I'm tired of these wars. We need to speak up and let our Representatives and our President know that we have had enough. Bring our boys & girls home! Bring our brave soldiers back to the United States, back to their communities, back to their families. Ten years of fighting is enough! Ten years of bloodshed and innocent lives maimed and destroyed is enough!I'm a proud citizen of the United States of America. I still think this is the best country in the World. But I'm tired of being lied too and misled. The U.S. attacked Iraq and Afghanistan in reaction to the 9/11 bombing of the Twin Towers in New York. It was justified to go after the Terrorist camps in Afghanistan but there was no justification for attacking and invading Iraq. We were told that they had weapons of mass destruction. That turned out to be a lie. We were told our military was going into Iraq as liberators to set the people free, that they would be dancing in the streets. Well, we know the dancing lasted for a few hours and then the bloodshed continued. We did not liberate them, we killed their brutal leader and bombed their countryside. We sacrificed our soldiers and we killed their fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, grandfathers, grandmothers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives and their sons and daughters.I live in Southern California. I like going to the coastal cities of Oceanside and Carlsbad. Recently when I was in Carlsbad, I saw several young military guys walking around with prosthetic arms and legs and some with scars on their face and arms from their injuries of war. Young men permanently maimed for their sacrifice for our country. It made me mad. I respect the soldiers but I hate the way our leadership has misled our country into these wars. When is enough, enough? What is the goal of these wars? Is it really worth the sacrificing of our young men and women? I have heard several well meaning people say "they (the soldiers) are fighting for our freedoms". I hate that saying. It is misguided at best and a complete lie at its worst. They are not fighting for our freedoms---that war was fight many years ago---they are fighting for our government and at they are fighting for the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, and now for Libya. What freedoms could we possibly gain from these wars? Lets be honest with each other, these wars are being fought for former President George W. Bush and the congress he had, and now, to my dismay, they are being fought for President Obama and the present congress. President Obama promised to end these wars and bring our soldiers home. He has given no indication at all that he is going to do that anytime soon. But we are at fault as well. In this democracy "by the people and for the people", we are supposed to speak up if we don't like something. It is time to speak up. It is time to get mad. It is time to demand that we bring our men and women back home. It is time to say 'quit wasting those billions of dollars on war and destruction and put it to use for people in this country. Quit sending billions overseas to other countries in aide (to buy their allegiance) and spend that money on our country's people'.Bring our men and women home!

America's Terrorists

Americans are growing weary of our involvement in a war it believes it can not win in Iraq. After all, how do you win a war against an enemy that hides in caves or does not wear a uniform to distinguish itself as "the enemy"? This war on terrorism misses the mark in several ways, but one major way goes unnoticed by the general population.
While billions of dollars are spent on an enemy we can never eradicate in the middle east, we fail to label groups inside our country as terrorists despite their actions that strike fear into our lives or hold us hostage to their desires.
It's easy to label someone a terrorist when he straps explosives to his chest and walks into a crowded mall and detonates himself and in the process, kills scores of innocent people. And when this person practices a religion we do not fully understand or embrace, demonizing all who practice the religion becomes easy to do.
However, how is such an act any different than when a right wing Christian group takes credit for blowing up a women's health clinic because they are opposed to abortion? Both acts are done by religious zealots who are blind to any other way of thinking and both are convinced they are doing God's work.
America's terrorists do not stop here. What better word describes people who in the dark of night dress in hooded robes and burn crosses as a way to intimidate and drive out black families from their southern neighborhoods? To make someone, anyone, live in fear of their life is terrorism and the people who do this are terrorists.
When a dark SUV filled with angry young men slowly drives through a neighborhood with guns in full view, they can only be described as terrorists. And when they do not succeed in intimidating others and resort to spraying a home with bullets fired from their automatic weapons, killing people inside, it can only be described as an act of terrorism.
The twenty-five year old drug dealer who recruits eight, ten, and twelve year old boys to run his drugs for him under the threat of ,"Do it or I will hurt your family," is a terrorist. So are the young teenagers who beat up the same kid every day after school until he gets tired of it and agrees to join their gang.
Our government employs many fine law enforcement officers to hunt these criminals down and prosecutors to see to it they go to jail for their crimes, but still terrorists thrive inside our country. It's a major reason why today, one out of every one hundred citizens are in prison and we can not build new prisons fast enough to house our growing prison population.
But these are not our only terrorists. CEOs of major energy corporations are also terrorists. While they continue to rake in record profits while we pay close to $4.00 a gallon for gas, these people control our politicians and their political futures. No one of significance can get elected if they do not vote in favor of the energy corporate lobbyists because they know their campaign funds will dry up faster than the drought plagued southwest. It is a major reason why we, as a nation, are still tied to the use of fossil fuels rather than cleaner and cheaper energy sources like the wind and the sun.
It might surprise you, but our education leaders are also terrorists. They force our children into a narrow minded approach to learning, place them under undue stress as they work to achieve certain test scores and then they fail to provide them with affordable college tuition when they graduate from high school. An entire generation of standardized test takers will not be able to afford the cost of college and be forced into entering low paying and unfulfilling professions rather than be able to pursue the American dream.
So, the next time you look at someone of middle eastern decent or who practices Islam, do not be so quick to label him a terrorist. We have terrorists in every town in our country. It may not be comforting to think of them as terrorists, but when you analyze their actions, there is no other word that describes them better than terrorists.