My View

BY DON SORCHYCH  |  March 30, 2016

The high and mighty

On Friday, March 16, the first front page article in The Arizona Republic was headlined, “Ariz. Power broker targets Trump.” The article was written by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, so I put little faith in the accuracy of the article.

I heard the essence of the article the previous day on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program. Rush reported the owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks said he was not for Trump and if he lost 100,000 fans so be it. Well, let’s hope he loses all his fans and has to sell his losing team. Ken Kendricks can afford it, apparently.

Guest Editorials:

By DON BITLER  |  March 30, 2016

Donald Trump Fountain Hills Rally

Those who desire to peacefully protest have that right in America as an integral part of our Constitutional rights. Some of what happened in and around Fountain Hills, Arizona (March 19, 2016) however, is not protesting – it is disrupting. All Americans should support legal peaceful protesting. However, what happened in Arizona is attempting to take away Donald Trump’s and his supporters’ “first amendment rights to peacefully assemble.” That is wrong and we see it as a violation of our civil rights. Sooner or later there will be bad violence which could and no doubt will lead to even more serious violence. Patriotic American citizens must recognize what is happening.

By Dr. Earl Tilford  |  March 30, 2016

The perils of cooking intelligence: From Vietnam to ISIS

Recent revelations by the Pentagon’s inspector general indicates that U.S. Central Command, which bears responsibility for military operations in the Middle East, altered intelligence analyses to support the Obama administration’s contention that limited air strikes have “contained ISIS.” If so, that’s unfortunately nothing new. Politically skewed intelligence has a history.

In November 1967, President Lyndon Johnson ordered Gen. William Westmoreland, Military Assistance Command for Vietnam (MACV), home for a public relations tour. Facing re-election in 1968, Johnson needed another term to implement his Great Society. He needed Westmoreland to reassure a war-weary public and bolster his upcoming re-election campaign.
Starting in 1966, MACV conducted massive ground sweep operations compiling impressive “quantitative” victories; these victories focused on obtaining body counts of 10-enemies-to-one-American. Numbers of enemy dead, wounded, and captured, plus compilations of weapons and rice caches captured, along with expanded secure areas within South Vietnam, were all considered indications of progress.