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Page 4A - Tuesday, December 8, 2009 - Plainview Daily Herald http://www.MyPlainview.com
Plainview Daily Herald
http://www.myplainview.com
Plainview Daily Herald
A Unit of of The the Hearst Corporation
Published afternoons (except Saturday and and Sunnday) Sunday) and Sunday Mornings. Mornings
296-1300 – 820 Broadway P.O. Box 1240 Plainview, Texas 79072
Sandra Aven Kevin Lewis
Publisher Editor
Sandra Aven, Publisher Danny Andrews, Editor
James Thomas, Publisher Emeritus
MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS and NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
“If all printers were determined not to print anything
‘til they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be
very little printed.” – Benjamin Franklin
Your Opinion
(Your Opinion presents
reader comments on stories
appearing in the Herald.
These comments and more
fi rst appear on the Herald’s
Web site, www.MyPlainview.
com)
Story: Girl arrested for
threatening to blow up
school
“I am the aunt of Priscilla
Soto and I am very upset of
how the school and our legal
system handled this situation.
My sister contacted me about
noon that she was on her way
to the police station because
my niece had been arrested
and was fi xing to be sent to
a juvenile detention center.
Once there, the detective was
talking to my sister and stated
that Priscilla had confessed to
the graffi ti. My sister asked
her why they had not notifi ed
her at school of this issue.
According to the detective
and school offi cials, they do
not have to notify a parent at
all when a student has committed
vandalism in a school
setting. My sister and I were
very upset to learn about the
so called ‘legal policy.’ We
believe a child should not
be coerced into confessing
something that they didn’t
do. That is called bullying,
and that too is illegal even
for police. The Coronado
Junior High counselor stated
personally to me that they
had to call in the graffi ti to
police because of the safety
of the students at the school,
but I say Priscilla is also part
of the student body. Where is
her representation and safety?
Isn’t she part of the school as
well.”
Author: Maria Soto
• • •
“I think Mrs. Soto is right
about the cop interviewing her
daughter without her there. I
hope that they get her daughter
back in to school and out
of juvenile detention.”
Author: max belyeu
• • •
“Well I’ll tell you that just
this kind of behavior started
the shooting in Moses
Lake, Wsh., which went on
to more extreme shootings
after. Don’t we want to be
prepared or should we put
our guard down now for everyone.
The world is a crazy
place now and God knows
what is going through our
children’s minds. God bless
them and us all!”
Author: Deb
• • •
“I am amazed how people
are viewing this situation! I
have young children and if
this were my child in trou-
Let’s get it done, then bring our troops home
What is our goal in Afghanistan?
Is it national security alone
and the preservation of our
republic? Is it to stop the
spread of an odious ideology
that cloaks itself in religion?
Is it to prevent Afghanistan
from once again becoming
a safe haven for those who
planned and executed the
9/11 attacks?
Our goal in Afghanistan,
President Barack Obama
told the nation in a primetime
address from the U.S.
Military M Academy at West
Point, Po is “to disrupt, dismantle,
m and defeat Al Qaeda
in Afghanistan and Pakistan,
and an to prevent its capacity to
threaten th America and our al-
lies in the future.”
Gen. Stanley McChrystal,
the commander responsible
for carrying out Obama’s
new war plan, says we have
seen more violence, more
deaths and more territory lost
to the enemy because “we
didn’t have enough troops
to fi nish the job.” And fi nish
the job we must, though
it remains unclear if sending
an additional 30,000 troops
alone will be suffi cient. In
the past three months, more
than 1,000 American troops
have been wounded in battle,
a skyrocketing fi gure that accounts
for one-fourth of all
U.S. casualties since the war
began in 2001 -- and these
casualties occurred after we
sent an additional 21,000
troops to Afghanistan.
Yet as much as I would
like to see our brave men
and women immediately returned
home to their richly
deserved hero’s welcome,
we have to get
this right. For now,
“getting it right”
means reaching the
objectives the president
outlined. Obviously,
our European
allies agree. Following
Obama’s speech,
NATO Secretary-
General Anders
Fogh Rasmussen
reaffi rmed his pledge that
NATO could provide 5,000
extra troops, which would
bring the increased troop
level close to the 40,000
McChrystal requested.
For years, this war was
under-resourced. It became
the forgotten war. Afghan
President Hamid Karzai
lost focus, and the gains
we had made were overturned.
Now, Obama has
established benchmarks to
measure future success that
will rely not just on our
military prowess, but on
the ability of Afghan leaders
to take control of their
country, recruit and train
their own force to protect
their borders, and to build
a reliable and transparent
government that serves the
interest of the people rather
than Karzai’s cronies.
Obama’s critics, including
former Vice President Dick
Cheney, are wrong to mock
him for setting a deadline for
the Afghan army and police
to take control as we begin
the withdrawal process by
July 2011. It’s important
to clearly defi ne what the
“end” will look like and by
when it must occur. Visual-
izing a goal is essential
to its achievement.
All this focus on
“conducting the war” is
what bogged us down
in Vietnam, where we
continued to invoke the
domino theory long after
it had unraveled. In
our tunnel vision, we
continued to focus on
conduct, troop levels
and body counts. Today,
Cheney is focused on
conduct, troop levels and
captured territory. Ditto Sen.
John McCain.
But war is not about troop
levels. It’s about sharply defi
ned objectives and goals.
If the situation on the
ground in Afghanistan is
not secure, the plan will
be adjusted to ensure that
we meet our objective: the
transfer of security to the
Afghans on a province-byprovince
basis based not on
a timeline but on benchmarks.
“Just as we have
done in Iraq,” noted Obama,
“we will execute this transition
responsibly taking into
consideration the conditions
on the ground.”
The president has demanded
that the Afghan
government meet clear performance
levels. He has set
specifi c benchmarks and the
metrics by which to defi ne
them. These are the specifi cs
Obama introduced, leaving,
I believe wisely, the pace
and scale of the withdrawal
undefi ned.
Here’s what I say: If the
objectives within the general
frameworks are not even
close to being met come July
2011, we should withdraw
our support from the Afghan
government and bring our
troops home. Therefore, we
must get it right.
Politically, this is a hard
and bitter pill to swallow
for Democrats, especially
those who campaigned on
the premise that Afghanistan
was the place to wage
our fi ght against the terrorists
who attacked us on Sept.
11.
Lastly, there is one more
issue that demands a national
debate: the additional cost in
terms of treasure. The surge
in troops will cause the defi -
cit to swell an estimated $30
billion this fi scal year. For
years, we have borrowed to
pay for the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. We’re in a recession.
How will we pay
for this?
I don’t have all the answers.
Though I am not ready to
become a hawk, I love my
country. I cherish our freedoms,
I trust our president,
and I am grateful for the sacrifi
ce of the men and women
who have answered the call
to serve.
Like the president, for
now I believe this is the
right course of action. Like
the rest of the country, I pray
the goals he outlined will be
executed well and in a timely
manner.
(Donna Brazile is a political
commentator on CNN,
ABC and NPR; contributing
columnist to Roll Call,
the newspaper of Capitol
Hill; and former campaign
manager for Al Gore.)
May everything that is promised come true
President Obama certainly
showed leadership mettle in
going against his own party’s
base and ordering a troop
surge into Afghanistan. He is
going to have to be even more
tough-minded, though, to
make sure his policy is properly
executed.
I’ve already
explained why
I oppose this
escalation. But
since the decision
has been
made — and
I do not want
my country
to fail or the
Obama presidency
to sink
in Afghanistan
— here are some thoughts on
how to reduce the chances that
this ends badly. Let’s start by
recalling an insight that President
John F. Kennedy shared
in a Sept. 2, 1963, interview
with Walter Cronkite:
Cronkite: “Mr. President,
the only hot war we’ve got
running at the moment is, of
course, the one in Vietnam,
and we have our diffi culties
there.”
Kennedy: “I don’t think
that unless a greater effort is
made by the ((Vietnamese))
government to win popular
support that the war can be
won out there. In the fi nal
analysis, it is their war. They
are the ones who have to win
it or lose it. We can help them;
we can give them equipment;
we can send our men out there
as advisers. But they have to
win it, the people of Vietnam,
against the Communists. We
are prepared to continue to
assist them, but I don’t think
that the war can be won unless
the people support the
effort and, in my opinion,
in the last two months, the
((Vietnamese)) government
has gotten out of touch with
the people. ...”
Cronkite: “Do you think
this government still has time
to regain the support of the
people?”
Kennedy: “I do. With
changes in policy and perhaps
with personnel I think it
can. If it doesn’t make those
changes, the chances of winning
it would not be very
good.”
What JFK understood,
what LBJ lost sight of, and
what BHO can’t afford to forget,
is that in the end it’s not
about how many troops we
send or deadlines we set. It is
all about our Afghan partners.
Afghanistan has gone into a
tailspin largely because President
Hamid Karzai’s government
became dysfunctional
and massively corrupt — focused
more on extracting revenues
for private gain than on
governing. That is why too
many Afghans who cheered
Karzai’s arrival in 2001 have
now actually welcomed Taliban
security and justice.
“In 2001, most Afghan people
looked to the United States
not only as a potential mentor
but as a model for successful
democracy,” Pashtoon Atif, a
former aid worker from Kandahar,
recently wrote in The
Los Angeles Times. “What
we got instead was a freefor-all
in which our leaders
profi ted outrageously and unapologetically
from a wealth
of foreign aid coupled with a
dearth of regulations.”
Therefore, our primary
goal has to be to build — with
Karzai — an Afghan government
that is “decent enough”
to earn the loyalty of the Afghan
people, so a critical mass
of them will feel “ownership”
of it and therefore be ready
to fi ght to protect it. Because
only then will there be a “selfsustaining”
Afghan army and
state so we can begin to get
out by the president’s July
2011 deadline.
But here is what worries
me: The president’s spokesman,
Robert Gibbs, said
fl atly: “This can’t be nationbuilding.”
And the president
told a columnists’ lunch on
Tuesday that he wants to
avoid “mission creep” that
takes on “nation-building in
Afghanistan.”
I am sorry: This is only
nation-building. You can’t
train an Afghan army and
police force to replace our
troops if you have no basic
state they feel is worth fi ghting
for. But that will require
a transformation by Karzai,
starting with the dismissal of
his most corrupt aides and
installing offi cials Afghans
can trust.
This surge also depends,
the president indicated, on
Pakistan ending its obsession
with India. That obsession
has led Pakistan to support
the Taliban to control Afghanistan
as part of its “strategic
depth” vis-a-vis India.
Pakistan fi ghts the Taliban
who attack it, but nurtures
the Taliban who want to control
Afghanistan. So we now
need this fragile Pakistan to
stop looking for strategic
depth against India in Afghanistan
and to start building
strategic depth at home,
by reviving its economy and
school system and preventing
jihadists from taking
over there.
That is why Obama is going
to have to make sure, every
day, that Karzai doesn’t weasel
out of reform or Pakistan
wiggle out of shutting down
Taliban sanctuaries or the allies
wimp out on helping us.
To put it succinctly: This only
has a chance to work if Karzai
becomes a new man, if Pakistan
becomes a new country
and if we actually succeed at
something the president says
we won’t be doing at all: nation-building
in Afghanistan.
Yikes!
For America’s sake, may it
all come true.
(Thomas Friedman is a
columnist for the New York
Times News Service.)
Republic president takes mysterious leave of absence
On the brink of a complete
breakdown, Mirabeau
Lamar dumped his offi cial
duties in the lap of Vice
President David G. Burnet
on Dec. 7, 1840, and took a
break from the demands of
Texas’ highest offi ce.
Propelled into prominence
by his bravery on the battle at
San Jacinto, the 38-year-old
Georgian was the people’s
choice to play second fi ddle
to Sam Houston. As the No.
2 man in the new nation’s
pecking order, he had even
more time on his hands than
his American counterpart.
By the spring of 1837,
Lamar was bored silly. Figuring
weeks would pass before
anyone missed him, he
returned to the Peach State
for a hero’s homecoming.
Mallard Fillmore
ble they should be punished
just like everyone else else. I do
not believe law enforcement
would ‘make’ someone confess
to something they did
not do. I just think that is an
excuse that people use to try
and get out of trouble. I do
believe the actions that the
law enforcement took were
the right actions. Why would
they have taken that kind of
action if there was no proof?
If law enforcement would
have ignored this situation
and the girl went through
with what she wrote, then everyone
would be complaining
about how law enforcement
ignored it and didn’t do their
job, so make up your mind
people! As for the mother of
this child, no kid is a perfect
kid and they all make mistakes.
As for the Herald and
the news, you people should
get the full story before going
public about things like
this. To the Plainview Police
Dept., you guys did what you
had to do, no matter who the
person was and I support
you!”
Author: Amazed
• • •
Story: Seventh-grade girl
charged with vandalism,
not threat
“This is shameful conduct
on the part of the school
district. I worry about my
grandchildren if their parents
could drop them off at the
school door (and) then pick
them up days later at a jailhouse.
What is this world
coming to? What ever happened
to children being children
and being protected by
adults. I am shocked that a
school would think this sort
of treatment is acceptable or
that a community would support
it. I am grieved in my
heart and am praying for this
little girl and her family. I
can’t imagine how afraid the
other students in that school
are, how they view the authority
fi gures in their school
and school system and how
that fear is now impacting
their ability to learn.”
Author: Minnie
• • •
Story: Holiday Tree of
Hope to be dedicated Monday
in memory of Vonda
Boerger
“What a beautiful story
that tells again how my mom
lived her life to the fullest
giving all the glory to our
Father in Heaven. Thank you
for honoring her memory by
dedicating this tree to her.
God Bless.
Author: Vonda’s daughter,
Sarah Smith
All the fl attering fuss did
wonders for his defl ated
ego.
But Lamar’s absence was
indeed noticed by a number
of senators fed up with
the high-handed methods
of President Houston, and
in late 1837 they secretly
summoned the vice president.
Lamar was surprised
to learn that his friends had
launched a grass-roots campaign
to ensure his succession
of General Sam, who
was prohibited by the constitution
from seeking reelection.
Lamar at fi rst shied away
from the contest because he
feared a shellacking at the
polls by Thomas Rusk, who
could count on the backing
of the infl uential incumbent.
OPINION
Thomas
Friedman
But when Rusk bowed out
and 11 of the 14 senators
pledged their support, Lamar
jumped in the race with
both feet.
The strange suicides of the
top two contenders left him
with only a paper opponent.
“Honest Bob” Wilson was
an eccentric who had earned
his nickname with the frank
admission, “I’m always as
honest as the circumstances
of the case and the condition
of the country will allow.”
Lamar’s defeat of “Honest
Bob” by 6,695 to 252 votes
caused critics to complain he
had beaten a couple of dead
men and a political nobody.
The high-strung president-elect
was upstaged
at his own inauguration.
Though not on the list of
Donna
Brazile
scheduled speakers,
Houston monopolized
the podium for three
long hours. When
his long-winded predecessor
fi nally sat
down, Lamar was
so fl ustered that he
handed his speech to
an assistant to read.
That incident illustrated
Lamar’s most
glaring weakness —
a serious lack of emotional
toughness. His psychological
vulnerability proved to
be a tragic fl aw that handicapped
a brilliant mind. He
was, in the end, his own
worst enemy in spite of his
fi rm belief that the dubious
distinction belonged to Sam
Houston.
Many Texans agreed with
the assessment of Anson
Jones, who observed soon
after the second chief executive
took the oath, “He
is a very weak man, and
governed by petty passions
which he cannot control
and prejudices which are
the result of ignorance.”
Even admirers admitted he
was prone to depression and
practically unapproachable
during his dark moods.
As president Lamar defi
antly raised the banner of
Bartee
Haile
Texas nationalism in
combative contrast to
the annexation movement.
He envisioned
a Lone Star Republic
stretching to the Pacific,
a continental rival
of the United States
rather than a subservient
member of the
Union.
While this stand as
well as his aggressive
policy toward the Indians
met with widespread approval,
the daily demands
of running the government
were just too much for Lamar.
He tried his best to
bring order out of the fi -
nancial chaos engulfi ng the
new nation, but by October
1840 the promissory notes
of the fl at-broke Republic
were worth no more than
15 cents on the dollar.
The economic crisis and
a host of political problems
drained the perplexed president
physically and emotionally.
When congress
refused in December 1840
to go along with his request
for a declaration of war on
Mexico, an exhausted Lamar
surrendered to bleak despair.
Vice President Burnet
took over, and he vanished
on a mysterious leave of ab-
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Page 4A
sence.
Lamar planned to travel to
New Orleans for treatment
but stopped instead at the
home of a physician in Independence.
He remained in
seclusion for several months
as the doctor slowly nursed
him back to health.
The disappearing act
moved Francis Moore to uncharacteristic
compassion.
Abandoning his standard
attack on Lamar’s every
word and deed, the editor
wrote, “We sincerely regret
the misfortunes which for a
season will deprive us of the
presence of General Lamar.
He has our warmest sympathy.”
Others were neither so
kind nor understanding. A
rumor made the rounds that
the unstable president had
lost his mind.
After the badly-needed
break, Mirabeau Lamar fi nished
his rocky term but the
pernicious doubts about his
mental health persisted. Until
his dying day, the former
president of Texas had to
live with the whispers.
(Bartee Haile writes
about Texas history. Contact
him at haile@pdq.net
or P.O. Box 152, Friendswood,
TX 77549)