Wrinkles

by

Bob Edgell

Geoffrey Wrinkles is an old man who reads his local newspaper, the Freedom Voice, and begins a dialogue with a young editor.

June 12, 2006

Freedom Voice

Attn: Brian Weasley

Topeka, Kansas

Dear Mr. Weasley

My name is Sir Geoffrey Alexander Wrinkles. Oh, I’m really not a Sir in the sense of a Lord or Duke; in fact, I gave myself the title when I turned 90 years old. I figured that if a modern man could survive the wars, disease and turmoil of 90 years, walk without an aid such as a cane or walker and still manage one good bowel movement a day, he had earned the right to have his peers and later generations call him ‘Sir.’ You may call me Sir Wrinkles.

I have always loved names and words. They fascinate me; especially onomatopoeic words that always seem to roll off the tongue as smoothly as the drool off an ancient chin. Drool is a good onomatopoeic word, so is buzz, gurgle, gargle, babbling, fart, and my favorite, whistle. Proper names can also be onomatopoeic and they have that added quality of providing the bearer of the name another dimension to their being. Nicknames are usually bestowed at an early age by an adult who sees something in a child that is emerging slowly, but not yet fully defined. It could be a boy or girl that receives this moniker and as they grow their personalities will gravitate to an identity that matches their new name. Butch, Duke, Pete, Chuck, and Angel are just a few to mention. Of course you have last names like Fox and Musil that conjure up an image for the holder to live up to and provide that reflection for the onlooker.

Then you have words like sesquipedalian, a wonderful word with both onomatopoeic quality and a certain irony. Old Daniel must have had a good laugh when he put that in his book. The adage that tells you to not judge a book by its cover could have also mentioned that you shouldn’t judge an author by the multi-syllable words that send you rushing to your dictionary at every paragraph. Personally, I don’t like these seven consonant, seven voweled words. We don’t speak them, so why should we have to read them? I must say ‘oy vey’ even though I’m not Jewish. Why must the children of learning suffer so much? Oy vey.

You must wonder why I’m writing such a letter to the editor. Here I am in my 90^th year and for the first time in my life, I find myself writing to a thirty-something to offer my opinion when this young soul is still wet behind the ears and remains clueless to most of life’s puzzles. Not that 90 years will help much, but it does fill your brain with all kinds of minutia that one can call upon for answers.

Take for instance, the other winter day when I turned on my car heater and it didn’t blow. No air, not hot or cold. So I get out my manual and needle nose pliers and started pulling fuses. My last resort was a series of relays under the hood so I open the hood, take the cover off the relay box and pull each one. They are all good. Leaning over the fender and looking at this old engine, I spot the housing to the blower motor. Now you would think that after 90 years of living with mechanical contraptions a person would call upon the minutiabrain (I just coined this and you may use it royalty free) where an answer would be lying. As I leaned over looking at that housing, I did indeed find a nugget in that minutiabrain and when it appeared, I took immediate action and pounded on that housing with my pliers. And you know young man, that motor starting whirrrring and it has whirred ever since. Whirring, another great onomatopoeic word.

This takes me back to why I am writing to you. I read your column every day so you must be a man of letters or you at least have some kind of degree; but you know, your education doesn’t always bleed through the ink on the pages. You seem to think that all is black and white, right or wrong, true or false, or just plain whatever you want it to be. In your education you forgot one basic principle: The Anatomy of Gray. There is a whole world out there that you seem to overlook. The world of gray and all that it entails when discussing humans and their events. Even the simplest of minds see gray and understand that society requires these gray areas to co-exist. Take for instance, justifiable homicide, aggravated assault, intentional grounding, accidental drowning, bold face or white lie, or, I like this one: ‘yellow journalism.’ You seem to have skipped the class in adverbs and adjectives. Society comes up with these modifiers to sneak in a little gray so we can better deal with all types of situations. You avoid them in preference to your trenchant style. And I guess that is where we differ.

You see, I grew up with a name like Wrinkles and it is a good name and has served me well for these 90 years. Oh, I must admit, there were times in my youth when I would have preferred another name, a name that the other children couldn’t make fun of or had a bad rhyme to it. Say the word wrinkles and feel your mouth and chin contort, much like the wrinkles in a newly washed shirt: it’s quite onomatopoeic. To make things worse, my mother hated to iron so before I ever knew a piece of cloth without wrinkles, she threw our only iron in the garbage and made her stand that wrinkles were natural and beautiful and part of the fabric of living. So I came to love my name as much as I love the wrinkles in my shirts and pants and the wrinkles that adverbs and adjectives give us as we traverse the hills and valleys of our world. Wrinkles give us texture and the shades of gray we require to be a just and fair people. They provide character: a natural character untouched by the myopic pressure of the iron or the pretentiousness of a flat, unnatural surface.

You see, young columnist, you are cheating yourself by remaining in your flat world of black and white, in your starched shirt without texture or the grays that would provide some depth to your world. As you grow older, your minutiabrain will fail you because you will only ask yourself if the fuse is good or bad and you will always be obliged to others to fix what is wrong in your life. You will live in your world, devoid of adverbs and adjectives, without imagination and creativity, and wonder why your career and life are stuck on page three.

Your last editorial regarding the war in the Middle East demonstrated your lack of imagination, or gray, as I call it. You point to the top of the chain and declare righteously of the need for more diplomacy. You have missed the point on this thousand year war completely.

I don’t expect you to understand and I certainly don’t expect you to change your two dimensional life because of this brief letter. You, like most of our society, will continue to look at fuses and the only way you will change and make a real contribution, is if someone, or something, pounds on your housing and starts your motor whirrrring.

Sincerely,

You may call me Sir Wrinkles

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July 15, 2006

Geoffrey Wrinkles

1 Main Street

Topeka, Kansas

Dear Mr. Wrinkles,

Thank you for your letter. I did indeed understand the gist of your message and your belief that our society could use more ‘wrinkles’ to make this a fair and just world. The wrinkles that you allude to are the very valleys of tolerance and laxness that harm the fabric of our great country. You see, I believe in the high road that keeps me on the mountain tops, surveying the carnage below that has been allowed by the liberal politicians and judges. You seem to believe that we need to adjust our values, or negotiate with immorality to make this a better world. I believe that any negotiation with evil only dilutes the values we strive for and shreds the garment of a great society. And diplomacy is the answer to the Middle East conflagration.

Yours truly,

Brian Weasley

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July 23, 2006

Freedom Voice

Attn: Brian Weasley

Topeka, Kansas

Dear Mr. Weasley,

You do me great honor by answering my letter with a personal note from your desk. Like the valley I live in, I would have hoped for more depth in your answer and the explanation of your moral position.

Today we are witnessing the continuation, or should I say another chapter, in the great Crusades that began in the 11^th century. You have done a wonderful job of calling for diplomatic answers and dialogue between the warring factions in the Middle East. Of course, you haven’t identified the good and evil in this battle so we can assume that they are both moral combatants: otherwise you would not call for negotiations. I can assume that prior to the establishment of an Israel state, you were on the side of the Papist who started this carnage a thousand years ago over a piece of land that held religious symbolism for both sides of the conflict. Now you must support the Jewish state as the vanguard of the relics of your religion. Christian or Jew, this conflict will continue well into the next century and beyond unless the black/white thinkers cease with their diplomatic proposals. It is much like the quandary of what a person should do when he sees an endangered animal existing by eating an endangered plant. There is no diplomacy or negotiation that will end this millennium crusade. The two warring factions will not cease in their quest to eliminate the other. In your two dimensional world, you would ask the parties to sit down, break bread together and be friends. You are unable to look beyond the conventional answers and arrive at a solution that may end this war. You think as a fundamental Christian and thus your roots are deeply embedded in the soil of Jerusalem: as are the roots of the Islam faith. Note here a small excerpt written by Karen Thompson.

Jerusalem was central to the spiritual identity of Muslims from the very beginning of their faith. When the Prophet Muhammad first began to preach in Mecca in about 612, according to the earliest biographies, which are our primary source of information about him, he had his converts prostrate themselves in prayer in the direction of Jerusalem. They were symbolically reaching out toward the Jewish and Christian God, whom they were committed to worshipping, and turning their back on the paganism of Arabia. Muhammad never believed that he was founding a new religion that canceled out the previous faiths. He was convinced that he was simply bringing the old religion of the One God to the Arabs, who had never been sent a prophet before.

Consequently, the Koran, the inspired scripture that Muhammad brought to the Arabs, venerates the great prophets of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It speaks of Solomon's "great place of prayer" in Jerusalem, which the first Muslims called City of the Temple. Only after the Jews of Medina rejected Muhammad did he switch orientation and instruct his adherents to pray facing Mecca, whose ancient shrine, the Kabah, was thought by locals to have been built by Abraham and his son Ishmael, the father of the Arabs.

The answer is clear that no one religion should occupy and control Jerusalem. You, however, are satisfied with the status quo where the Jewish religion protects your ancient relics.

You, my young editor, concentrate your energies on your brand of morality and immorality; your black and white world of good and evil. You can’t get past your righteousness to pose a solution to the Middle East war that is actually workable. If you were to break through your two sided prism, you may just see that the Middle East war is about land and relics and in particular, Jerusalem. You may also ask yourself why does the world allow the State of Israel to control this city that has caused wars for a thousand years? I know you are not a big supporter of the United Nations, but wouldn’t a mild solution to the problem be for Jerusalem to be ‘ordained’ a city of the world, not belonging to or occupied by any country. Following the example of the Vatican City, the world could enlist the Swiss to secure the city and even administer the city services. No one would own the land, the edifices or religious relics. They would be owned by the world of humanity.

Diplomacy indeed.

Yours truly,

Sir Geoffrey Wrinkles

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August 12, 2006

Geoffrey Wrinkles

1 Main Street

Topeka, Kansas

Dear Mr. Wrinkles,

You haven’t revealed your religious persuasion to me so I have to assume that you are an atheist. You have not found Christ and you don’t recognize the true prophet that was conceived by God himself and as the son of God, died for our sins and gives us the courage to die for his cause. Jerusalem is not the site of religious wars for vacuous reasons, it is the bastion of the only true religion, Christianity, and we support Israel because they protect our sacred land.

“Ordained City” indeed.

Yours truly,

Brian Weasley

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August 20, 2006

Freedom Voice

Attn: Brian Weasley

Topeka, Kansas

Dear Mr. Weasley,

May I assume you label me an atheist because I have not embraced your brand of Christianity? You seem to be suffering the same malady as the extremists of Islam and Zion. If they are not of your brand, then they are infidels and must suffer from your cleansing wars. Religions seem to quarrel over the real Messiah (or interpretations thereof), but curiously, they don’t argue over different Gods. They all have the same God. I also have a God. You see, I am a Deist. My God may not be the same God as the ‘revealed’ religions because my God has never revealed himself nor conceived any children. Deists are split in how they interact with their God. Some pray to God for thanks, others believe in revering him through appreciation of his creation.

I especially like this quote from Albert Einstein.

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."

I actually pray to God. In my own brand of Deism, I pray for intervention. I have lived ninety years and have seen and heard many moral platitudes based on Bible, Quran or Torah interpretations. Men of religious, political or simply power motives have rationalized their behavior or pointed to the writings in their ‘Book’ to subjugate others to their will or simply steal possessions or land.

Yes, I do have a prayer to God.

Dear God, father of all creation.

We thank you for your mercy and guidance.

Send us a Messiah, a voice above all,

To make us a world family and heaven on earth.

If one can imagine a world without religions, one could also imagine a world where the energies of humankind would be directed at the brotherhood of man; our likenesses, struggles and our common goal to make this a heaven on earth for all of the inhabitants. Moral guidance would be in the form of a mind set that saw man’s crusade as a quest for true harmony among men and a healthy planet for future generations. We don’t need prayers in school, we need an emphasis on our role in building this a better world. We say prayers to God thanking him for ‘this good bread’ and everything good that happens to us. What if we taught children that every night they must say a prayer to mankind. They will pray that tomorrow they will do a good for another person in order to make this a heaven on earth. Without this emphasis on human kind, we will have to wait for a new Messiah that foreshadows all the previous pretenders to the throne and be embroiled in this contest of differences and righteousness.

Yours truly,

Sir Geoffrey Wrinkles

August 28, 2006

Geoffrey Wrinkles

1 Main Street

Topeka, Kansas

Dear Mr. Wrinkles,

I ask forgiveness for presumptively calling you an atheist. I can respect the concept of Deism, but find it lacking in the principles that the Bible gives us to live by. A Christian can refer to passages in the Bible to guide him in the ways to live his life and how to treat his fellow man. What guides you in your daily life?

Yours truly,

Brian Weasley

September 4, 2006

Freedom Voice

Attn: Brian Weasley

Topeka, Kansas

Dear Mr. Weasley,

What guides me is humanity and the Golden Rule: something that everyone learns in the first year of Bible School. In my 91 years I have seen and read about men of religious, political and power motives who have rationalized their behavior or pointed to the writings in their ‘Book’ to subjugate others to their will or simply steal possessions or land. They believe that they are the righteous and it is God’s will that they spread their word, take land and put the heathens in their rightful place. All manner of deeds and misdeeds have been perpetrated for the good of God. In the previous century we began to see peace after a terrible European/Asian war. But the religious power politic would not let us rest.

A new scourge was growing and spreading and they saw it as a threat to the power and wealth they had attained. It was a brand of socialism that threatened their positions and the control they had over the population. The new scourge was Communism and fortunate for the power brokers, it was an oligarchy that saw religion as a crutch of the people and tried to ban it; when in fact the Communists were fearful of sharing their power with the powerful elite among religions. This was fortunate for the ‘leaders of the free world’ for they were handed the most powerful propaganda weapon to continue the subjugation of their populations. The leaders feared this brand of socialism because it was a threat to their wealth and power. Their ally, the Church, also feared Communism because of the threat of their power over the people. Instead of a fear of Communism that was socialism to the extreme, these allies were able to portray a godless enemy that must be stopped: a Communist Russia that was against religion or a Viet Nam that would start the dominos rolling across Asia. During the next half a century the power brokers in America would retreat from Viet Nam, leaving behind 50,000 dead American soldiers. The Russian Communist threat would be reduced by Gorbachev who the world saw as a great man and was presented with the Nobel Peace Prize. Simultaneously, the American power brokers were quick to give credit to Ronald Reagan for the demise of Communism, honoring him as a great hero who plunged this country into a massive debt and built our military beyond any reasonable requirement. They hailed his brand of conservatism as the vanguard of the American way of life; the way of life for the power brokers.

In less than a decade, the other big godless communist threat, China, would become our biggest trading partner: or should I say our biggest cheap labor pool. The godless card was put back into the deck to be used at a later date. The American public was held hostage for over half a century on the basis of the spread of an anti-religious government philosophy. Thousands of our boys gave their lives so the power brokers could find a way to siphon our hard earned resources to the military complex that rules this country. There was no domino effect when we left Viet Nam, Russia imploded from within due to the eventual enlightenment of their population and internal pressures. In the middle east, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were a major force in stabilizing a troubled region of the world. We are now fighting in both countries: two military campaigns that will end just as the Viet Nam war ended. And end that leaves America in a very dangerous debt position, thousands of our soldiers dead, tens of thousands wounded and scarred for life. And for what? The enrichment of the military complex and the power brokers of this country.

Now we are beginning a new era that is witnessing the zeal of the power brokers with their religious right allies to wage a crusade to fight terrorism around the globe. They have successfully pulled out the “security” card from the deck to make us fear a bunch of common criminals who should be hunted down as rabble. Instead of enlisting the world police organizations to locate and capture the criminals, the power elite is invading countries and further feeding the insatiable appetite of the military industrial complex: leaving America less secure as they throw embers of hate on the fire of the Muslim world.

I must admit, I don’t understand this strange bedfellow relationship between the religious right and the power brokers. The brokers look at every opportunity to plunge the people into debt and provide the wealthy with tax breaks. Is this the Christian way? How does a Christian rationalize all that the power brokers stand for: reducing funds to education, ignoring the health issues of the population, allowing unheard of profits for oil companies as the public must adjust their budgets to pay for the gas to travel to work, disregarding the health of our planet, and the many issues that make up the platform of the brokers. How can a Christian support this platform? Unless, in the words of that inscrutable Pat Robertson, God allegedly revealed to him and his Christian Coalition that He wants them to take over America and eventually the world with "His Word."

Yours truly,

Sir Geoffrey Wrinkles

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September12, 2006

Geoffrey Wrinkles

1 Main Street

Topeka, Kansas

Dear Mr. Wrinkles,

I can easily understand why you don’t understand the relationship between the ‘power brokers’ and the religious right. It may not have occurred to you that the righteous and the rich have one thing in common, their need to cleanse the earth of the heathens and the added need for the means to accomplish this task. In today’s world, God’s army is made up of more than shields and lances. It requires the most sophisticated technology and weaponry to combat the sophisticated armies of the devil. The rich are righteous and the righteous are rich in their love of Christ and their zeal to protect the one true religion.

Since the beginning of time wars have been necessary. How do you suppose man has advanced to his current state of knowledge and sophistication?

I hope this answers your question.

Yours truly

Brian Weasley

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September 4, 2006

Freedom Voice

Attn: Brian Weasley

Topeka, Kansas

Dear Mr. Weasley,

You have indeed answered my question and at the same time, you have posed a most interesting question. May I answer you, in both cases, with the postulate that riches lead to war and that man has degenerated, not evolved because of war.

Let me first define war. A war can be an action of defense (for the nation being attacked), or a war of expansion (the aggressor) or an internal war (people deciding how they will be governed). It is obvious that the nation being attacked is protecting their territory and status quo. The multifarious motives of the aggressor require a little explanation: leading to my conclusion that wars of aggression defile both God and man’s morality. Internal wars are the natural evolution of man in his quest for a government that will provide true justice and equality for all.

The motives of the aggressors in the past 2,000 years have been for a number of reasons, none of which have been for altruistic causes. A few examples would be greed, egomania, and power.

I will be selective in my examples and you are certainly encouraged to provide your own citations to refute me.

The Roman wars were for the expansion of wealth and power.

The Muslim war began with the attack on Medina (Mohammed’s home) by the polytheistic Arabic tribes.

The Ottoman Empire expansion was for power and wealth.

In the meantime, the Pope called on his subjects to capture the holy land and start the thousand year war.

King Henry V of England is insulted by the King of France who sent him a case of tennis balls for his birthday. As a result, Henry leads his army into battle against France in the bloody Battle of Agincourt.

Spain and England expand to the new world for riches and treasures, culminating in the near elimination of the native populations and cultures.

Before we proceed to ‘modern’ times, it is clear that the aggressor’s motives had nothing to do with religion or the good of all mankind. Entire cultures were eliminated or assimilated into the aggressor’s own brand of civilization.

This leads us to the 18^th century and the American colonial war with Britain. What if the colonies had not rebelled? After all, the British had financed this expansion to the new world and they were providing the services of a civil administrator. The colonies were not rebelling against an aggressor; they were, so to speak, throwing off the yoke of an oppressive government. But what if they had not rebelled, or should I say, followed the lead of the wealthy landowners in the new world to grasp the power over the population from the British? The colonies would have grown and eventually evolved into the parliamentary governments we see in Canada and Australia. The colonies had a right to rebel and the population had the right to follow their own power brokers. Little did they know that their living conditions would change little and they would find themselves under the yoke of a different color.

A population has the right to choose their form of government and rebel against the powers that control them. This is an important concept in our current discussion: the right of the population to choose their form of government and the justification to be an internal aggressor.

The American Revolution was followed by the French revolution: again, the people making their choice of how they are governed.

The French selected Napoleon to run head the military. While the French were putting their house in order, the British, Prussian, Russian, Spanish and Austrian monarchies began to be fearful of this trend in America and France to eliminate monarchies. Following the French revolutionary wars, the great monarchial powers of Europe banned together to restore the French monarchy. The forces of the first Coalition were Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, Spain, Sardinia and the Netherlands. Napoleon Bonaparte was given the job (1796-1797)of waging military operations against the Austrian forces in Northern Italy.

This was the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon was still only a commander and not the leader of France. However, as history shows, he was later elevated to Emperor by a French population that feared their annihilation by a union of monarchial government’s intent on breaking the free will of the French.

I see a parallel here between the actions of the power broking monarchies of that time and today’s power broking governments that fear government systems that spread the wealth and power more evenly among the population.

We can’t forget the American Civil war: the north trying to subjugate the south. The blacks were freed and the northern carpet baggers took over the wealth of the south. 100 years later a southerner named LBJ had to pass Civil Rights Legislation to finally allow blacks equality. If the civil war had not happened, economics and the black man’s pursuit of freedom would have occurred naturally, and it would have likely happened earlier than a 100 years. Most likely, when the labor unions began to emerge at the turn of the century, the blacks would have had the leadership to rise up, band together and force the system to allow equality.

This leads us to that great expansionist, Teddy Roosevelt. He wanted Panama in the worst way. He had visions of a Panama Canal but needed the country first. He invented a gunboat incident off the shores of Panama and then invaded. He got his wish and fulfilled his dream. He would later be copied by another President with the gun boat incident. The justification for the Panama Canal was to be able to move our Atlantic Fleet to the Pacific. It would have been easier and cheaper to build a Pacific Fleet for the Navy: which we eventually did and gave the canal back to the Panamanians. Of course, Teddy was also known as the Roughrider who stormed San Juan Hill to free Cuba from Spain so the U.S. could control the island’s puppet government for almost 60 years.

Does anyone know why we went to France in WW1? We weren’t invaded nor was a war declared. After the Archduke Ferdinand was killed, events began to happen through a series of treaties and alliances. Note here, again, a ‘gunboat’ scenario with the United States.

• Austria-Hungary, unsatisfied with Serbia's response to her ultimatum (which in the event was almost entirely placatory: however her jibbing over a couple of minor clauses gave Austria-Hungary her sought-after cue) declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914.
  
• Russia, bound by treaty to Serbia, announced mobilisation of its vast army in her defence, a slow process that would take around six weeks to complete.
  
• Germany, allied to Austria-Hungary by treaty, viewed the Russian mobilisation as an act of war against Austria-Hungary, and after scant warning declared war on Russia on 1 August.
  
• France, bound by treaty to Russia, found itself at war against Germany and, by extension, on Austria-Hungary following a German declaration on 3 August.  Germany was swift in invading neutral Belgium so as to reach Paris by the shortest possible route.
  
• Britain, allied to France by a more loosely worded treaty which placed a "moral obligation" upon her to defend France, declared war against Germany on 4 August.  Her reason for entering the conflict lay in another direction: she was obligated to defend neutral Belgium by the terms of a 75-year old treaty. 
  
  With Germany's invasion of Belgium on 4 August, and the Belgian King's appeal to Britain for assistance, Britain committed herself to Belgium's defence later that day.  Like France, she was by extension also at war with Austria-Hungary.
  
• With Britain's entry into the war, her colonies and dominions abroad variously offered military and financial assistance, and included Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa.
  
• United States President Woodrow Wilson declared a U.S. policy of absolute neutrality, an official stance that would last until 1917 when Germany's policy of unrestricted submarine warfare - which seriously threatened America's commercial shipping (which was in any event almost entirely directed towards the Allies led by Britain and France) - forced the U.S. to finally enter the war on 6 April 1917.
  
• Japan, honoring a military agreement with Britain, declared war on Germany on 23 August 1914.  Two days later Austria-Hungary responded by declaring war on Japan.
  
• Italy, although allied to both Germany and Austria-Hungary, was able to avoid entering the fray by citing a clause enabling it to evade its obligations to both.
  
  In short, Italy was committed to defend Germany and Austria-Hungary only in the event of a 'defensive' war; arguing that their actions were 'offensive' she declared instead a policy of neutrality.  The following year, in May 1915, she finally joined the conflict by siding with the Allies against her two former allies.
  

Go figure. Wilson couldn’t fight the power brokers and the power of the press and the U.S. went to war: losing thousands of men and the resources of the nation. Here we see that the U.S didn’t need an actual ‘gunboat’ incident to go to war, just the threat of an action.

Then on to the next great war: WW11. Japan builds a military society and begins expanding. They invade Manchuria and the U.S. cries halt. Following the cry was an embargo on Japan that threatened their economy. Japan retaliates by bombing Pearl Harbor: outside aggression, time to go to war. But, Germany and Italy were part of the Axis of evil, so war was declared on them. Instead of putting the might of the U.S. into a battle against the aggressor, we build up a military complex to take on Germany and Italy. A theme to be repeated later.

The next great war was in Korea. The communist north wanted to unite with the south. So? Why did we have to lose 50 thousand men to maintain a status quo, a divided country. If we had stayed out of it, the north would have taken over the south and it would be a communist peninsula. So?

After Korea, the power brokers couldn’t think of a good reason to take a fourth of our resources and put it into the military complex, so they came up with the Cold War. Think about that phrase a minute. “A Cold War.” The communist threat. What kind of threat? The threat that they could influence populations to throw out the power brokers and instill a proletariat type of government? Since the power brokers owned the press, they could use the media to talk only of the communist and their anti-religious programs. Thus they became known as the godless government and a threat to freedom of religion. So for 40 plus years our resources went to combat the godless communist.

During this period, another catchphrase surfaced. The domino theory. The theory that if one country falls to communism, their neighbors would be close behind. So we found ourselves in Viet Nam. First as advisors, then in the shadow of Teddy Roosevelt, LBJ came up with a gunboat incident in the Gulf of Tonkin. Full scale aggression and war. The men and resources of the U.S. were spent on a senseless war and after we capitulated, South Viet Nam was assimilated into the communist north. There was no domino effect. The power brokers had succeeded in spending the resources of the country again.

After Viet Nam, along came Ronny Reagan, that great orator who talked of the scourge of Communism and the need to build our weaponry. Reagan was no small thinker. He needed resources in the trillions of dollars for the military. So he borrowed and put the country into debt for his folly. This happened at a time when the U.S. had enough Nukes to wipe out the planet, equal to the Russian nuclear arsenal. It also had the best fighter planes, tanks, and artillery.

Ronny’s next adventure came in 1980 with the start of the Iran-Iraq war. He was still angry at Iran for the hostage crisis and overthrowing the U.S. puppet, the Shah, but he couldn’t allow Iran to be overthrown by Iraq. Thus he started funneling weapons to Iran in what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Ronny’s obsession with communism was still at the forefront and when Nicaragua became a communist nation, Ronny needed money and arms to supply the rebels trying to overthrow the communist regime. Congress wouldn’t allow the funding so Ronny sold arms to Iran and transferred the money to the Nicaragua rebels. Ronny’s paranoia over communism was greater than his hate for the Iranians. After he got his money, Ronny then decided that an Iranian victory over Iraq wasn’t such a good thing so he started to supply Saddam Hussein with arms and biological weapons. Ronny was wielding his power, shooting his bullets and he didn’t have a clue or a plan. He just knew that the American arms dealers needed to keep the factories working.

After Ronny, it was relatively calm until Iraq invaded Kuwait. Bush senior joined the U.N. to drive Saddam out of Kuwait. He may go down in history as one of the most respected Presidents.

Next came the war in Bosnia. Clinton joined with the U.N. to end the fighting in the former Yugoslavian states and stop the ethnic cleansing that displaced over 1.5 million residents. It was a war of intervention by the world body to protect Muslims against genocide by Christians.

The U.S. military was not overly happy with this project. They don’t like to coop their power with other militaries and besides, how do you squeeze more money out of the population if you don’t have a scare tactic.

Bill Clinton, like George Bush Sr., saw that the greatest threat to this country was not external, but internal. Great civilizations corrode from within through corruption and fiscal policy. Clinton, like Bush Sr. attempted to correct the deficit spending of the Reagan era. He began by reducing the military budget by 1% late in his first term. When the Republicans took over congress, a new threat emerged. It was called ‘military readiness.’ Generals were paraded through capital hill to give their testimony on the poor condition of the military, in spite of the trillions that Ronny had spent. Clinton was forced by the Republican Congress to put the 1% back into the budget. The power brokers had won again.

This brings us to the present and it is best summed up by Richard Clark, National Security Advisor for Reagan, Bush, Clinton and the current Bush.

Richard A. Clarke (born 1951) provided national security advice to four U.S. presidents: Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, consulting on issues of intelligence and terrorism, from 1973 to 2003. Until his retirement in 2003, Mr. Clarke was a member of the Senior Executive Service.

Clarke's specialties are computer security, counterterrorism and homeland security. He was the counter-terrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council when the September 11, 2001 attacks occurred.

Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror is a 2004 book by former U.S. national security advisor Richard A. Clarke, criticizing past and present presidential administrations for the way they handled the war on terror. The book focused much of its criticism on President George W. Bush, charging that he failed to take sufficient action to protect the country in the elevated-threat period before the September 11, 2001 attacks and for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which Clarke feels greatly hampered the war on terror.

Clarke argues that he made numerous urgent requests for a meeting about dealing with terrorism, had CIA Director George Tenet include numerous details about Al-Qaeda in daily briefings, found an unprecedented level of terrorist "chatter" before September 11, but still Bush refused to go to high alert, as President Clinton had done in a similar situation. Had they gone to high alert, Clarke would likely have found that the FBI had photos of two of the hijackers. They could have tracked the two down, interrogated them, and perhaps stopped the September 11 attacks.

Soon after 9/11, he says that defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld wanted to bomb Iraq, even though there was no evidence of their involvement, because they had more "good targets" than Afghanistan, which was actually involved.

Clarke also says that on September 12, 2001, President Bush "testily" asked him to try to find evidence that Saddam Hussein was connected to the terrorist attacks. (After an initial denial, the White House has since conceded that the meeting took place.) In response he wrote a report stating there was absolutely no evidence of Iraqi involvement and got it signed by all relevant agencies (the FBI, the CIA, etc.). The paper was quickly returned by a deputy with a note saying "Please update and resubmit," apparently unshown to the President.

Clarke also recalls a meeting where then Defense Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz expressed doubt that Osama bin Laden could have carried out the attacks on September 11 without state sponsorship — a theory based on the writings of Laurie Mylroie that Clarke says has been exhaustively investigated and disproven.

But perhaps most damagingly, Clarke claims that the administration has done "a terrible job" fighting terrorism, even since September 11. In particular, he feels the 2003 invasion of Iraq played right into Osama bin Laden's hands. For years, bin Laden had been producing propaganda saying that the US wants to invade and occupy an oil-rich middle eastern country, which was essentially validated by the US invasion of Iraq. As a result, says Clarke, it's not surprising that Al-Qaeda and its offshoots are having much greater success recruiting new members.

Furthermore, he feels the war has taken resources from the more important fight: stopping Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and around the world. He points out that had his plan been followed when he first presented it, Al-Qaeda could have been essentially eliminated. But since his plan was not followed, and Osama was essentially ignored as the United States and allies invaded Iraq, Al-Qaeda has grown incredibly in strength and number, and is now going to be difficult to stop.

We have perpetrated wars of aggression in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The former to rid the population of the Taliban and for our own oil interests (a route for the pipeline) and the latter for Bush’s egomania (“He tried to kill my dad”), his oil interests, and his need to satisfy the power brokers insatiable appetite. Bush Senior was wise in his withdrawal of troops after the liberation of Iraq. He understood the regional politics and knew that Hussein, a Sunni dictator, was our great buffer against the Iranian Shiite fanatics. Hussein also protected the flank of the Saudi Sunnie government. Bush Senior knew that Hussein was our own necessary evil and easy to keep in check. If we had not invaded Iraq, we would have had the military resources to take the fight to the Al Qaeda (Saudi Arabian citizens) thugs in Afghanistan: the ones responsible for 9/11.

In my 91 years, I have of course been proven wrong on some of my opinions. Perhaps you could enlighten me on past and current wars and the good they have served mankind.

Best Regards,

Sir Wrinkles

PS: If any readers would like to help this young editor respond, please write to edgell@cox.net and for the subject line: To: Sir Wrinkles. You may use your real name or a pen name.

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