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• DISSUADING IRAN FROM BUILDING A NUCLEAR WEAPON: THE LESSON OF THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS February 5, 2012
  Can the U.S. dissuade Iran from building a nuclear weapon without having to resort to the use of military force? American presidents have a mixed record of success in the post-World War II world of influencing the decision making of our adversaries and avoiding war. Where they have succeeded--the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis is the prime example--it was […]
• SEEK TRUTH FROM FACTS: THE KEY TO DEFEATING PRESIDENT OBAMA January 29, 2012
  "Seek truth from facts", a Chinese expression that dates from the Han Dynasty (206 BC to 25 AD) and used by Deng Xiaoping to reclaim China from Mao Zedong's destruction, should be the Republican Party's campaign slogan in 2012. President Obama and the leadership of the Democratic Party seek to create truth from campaign rhetoric, fear, an […]
• SUCCESSFUL PRESIDENTS AND EXTRAMARITAL AFFAIRS January 22, 2012
  There is an interesting correlation between the most successful presidents over the past 80 years and those that have had extramarital affairs. Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Bill Clinton all had extramarital affairs before or during their terms of office. Only Ronald Reagan appears to be the exception to the rule. Is it any wonder […]
• WHY SOME AMERICAN WARRIORS BEHAVE BADLY January 15, 2012
  In every American war there have been those few that will urinate on enemy corpses or degrade and abuse enemy detainees. War is hell, and it can bring out the worst in people. But do those who behave badly do so because of the stresses of combat or because of a propensity for such behavior before they entered the military? As a Vietnam War combat veteran, I […]
• WHAT THE 2012 ELECTION WILL TELL US ABOUT OURSELVES January 8, 2012
  Following the 2008 election Americans learned a great deal more about the man they elected president than they knew about him when they voted for him. The 2012 election will tell us more about ourselves than the man we elect as our president, no matter who he is.
• THE NORTH KOREA CONUNDRUM: THE DINOSAUR THAT WON'T GO EXTINCT January 1, 2012
  How is it that Stalinist North Korea continues to survive into the 21st Century when its communist-sister nations evolved? North Korea, now under Supreme Leader number three, Kim Jong-un, is the dinosaur that won't go extinct. The answer is that China nurtures and protects North Korea, preferring it the way it is; and until the Democratic People's […]
• CHRISTMASES PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE December 18, 2011
  Each of us who celebrate Christmas in America, at one time or another as December 25 approaches, thinks about Christmases past, present, and future. We string Christmases past together in our minds as if they were bulbs on an old strand of Christmas lights. There are those that glow dimly or not at all because they hold unhappy memories; and there are those […]
• TO TRUMP OR NOT TO TRUMP, THAT IS (WAS) THE QUESTION December 11, 2011
  On December 27, 2011, if it isn't cancelled for lack of participants, Donald Trump is scheduled to moderate the Newsmax ION Television Republican Presidential Debate in De Moines, Iowa. The jury is out on whether Trump's P.T. Barnum approach to the 2012 presidential election ultimately will help or hurt Republicans. What's clear is Trump and P […]
• CAN NEWT GINGRICH WIN THE NOMINATION AND THE ELECTION? December 4, 2011
  Newt Gingrich is the shooting-star-of-the-month Republican candidate for president. He's proclaimed himself the front runner based on the polls; and it must be true because all the other Republican candidates have begun criticizing him. But can the chubby, twice divorced, former Speaker of the House with an attitude and a record in politics longer than […]
• DEMOCRAT'S SUPPORT FOR OWS AND NOSTALGIA FOR THE ANTI-VIETNAM WAR MOVEMENT November 27, 2011
  Is it any wonder why many high-profile Democrats, including President Obama, have supported and defended the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement and continue to do so? It holds out the promise of a return to the heady and influential days of the anti-Vietnam War movement where Democrats, now in their 50s and 60s, cut their teeth. They see it as a tool to rally […]