about time

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told West Point cadets last week that it would be foolish for the United States ever to fight another war like those in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Right. I've known that for some years. So have tens of millions of other ordinary citizens.
Furthermore, Gates said, any future secretary of defense who would advise a future president to send a big land army into Asia, the Middle East or Africa "should have his head examined."
Sure. We common folks couldn't have said it better. Trouble is, those who start our wars -- people in the Pentagon, Congress, the arms industry and too often the White House -- don't listen to us or don't think we know anything. Or both.
Maybe these military hawks will listen to Gates. After all, he is the nation's No. 1 manager in charge of wars. He's got credentials. But what took him so long to speak out?
Meanwhile, the same two old foolish -- and tragic -- wars go on. Iraq is winding down, but nine Americans have died there so far this year, making 4,439 since 2003. In Afghanistan, where we've been since 2001, the toll as of Monday was 1,484. Five hundred Americans died there in 2010 alone.
The billions of dollars spent every year on these wars are a major factor in our fiscal deficits, but is Congress clamoring for wholesale cuts in the defense budget? I don't hear it.

good ol' days

I see the Grand Old Party is shedding Dick Wadhams as its state chairman, and I am happy for him, a political pal of mine of long, long ago. Imagine, today, trying to get along with the brassy, bustling Tea Party zealots and other extremists who seem determined to wreck what used to be a reasonable (if fundamentally misguided) Republican Party of Colorado.
It was several decades ago, as a newspaper reporter, that I met Dick Wadhams. He and a similarly happy-go-lucky friend named Sean Conway were political rookies. Gofers, you might say.
They were learning about elections from the ground up, driving cars for Republican candidates, things like that.
I saw a lot of them, and we had some good laughs. I think they were having the time of their lives. I know I was.
I didn't hold it against them that they were Republicans, and I don't think they held it against me that I was a Democrat.
Conway stayed active in public life, too, and the last I knew he was a Weld county commissioner, which isn't a minor office in that large and wealthy county.
He's likely settled down a lot. We all have. It will be interesting to see where Dick Wadhams is headed.