Roy Lehman writes that most of the 2016 presidential field is too willing to get America involved in ill-conceived military action.
To the Editor:
I recently attended a lecture in the Widener Speakers Series at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia given by former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. He was very loquacious and quite charismatic, and his lecture was very interesting.
Leon Panetta, former member of Congress, secretary of defense, White House chief of staff and director of the Central Intelligence Agency. One takeaway from the lecture was that he is not a big fan of President Barack Obama. Panetta's entire speech was about American leadership which, it occurred to me while listening to him, is nothing more than code for American intervention in other nations.
We're about to elect a new president. We have every opportunity to restart this brand of "American leadership," from Hillary Clinton on the left, a liberal interventionist; to Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz on the right, with their neoconservative and interventionist advisers. Then throw gadfly Donald Trump into the mix.
We are currently suffering through the results of the failed "American leadership" of George W. Bush, the mendacious purveyor of malfeasance and opener of the 21st-century equivalent of Pandora's Box.
When such "leadership" consists of demands for regime change, because the ideal of democracy seems better than an authoritarian dictator who can keep a lid on things, we're in deep trouble. Look no further than the failed Iraq experiment and the tragedy of Paris for validation.
Real American leadership today would consist of Obama being truthful with the American people by telling them the problems in the Middle East don't emanate from the Persian Shia of Iran, but from the Sunni Arabs of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.
Releasing the 28 redacted pages from the 9/11 Commission Report that deal with the nexus of Saudi Arabia to the 9/11 tragedy would also be real American leadership. We need some real American leadership right now, Mr. President, and not the type being demanded by the right wing.
Roy Lehman
Woolwich Township
To the Editor:
Concerning the recent article "(Monroe Township) Council president banned from schools after alleged threat":
(The township school board took the action against Frank Caligiuri following repeated requests by the councilman for information about why a teacher had been laid off last year. An e-mail from Caliguiri supplied to the Times by the school district reportedly stated, "I will get to the bottom of this, and I honestly don't care how many dead bodies I leave in my path.")
Let's not let the facts get in the way of the hype. The fact is if the school district has nothing to hide, why not simply provide the teacher's test scores and prove why they laid off a teacher with two masters degrees? The board also refused to reconsider rehiring that teacher for other open positions.
I've never aspired to be a politician or a "yes" man, but rather a genuine advocate for people. I demonstrate the courage to stand alone.
These school district people -- Superintendent Chuck Earling and board solicitor John Armano -- have gone to great lengths to get into the newspaper my e-mail and their ban in order to disgrace me.
Unlike Earling and Armano, I have nothing to hide, no story to give the paper, just test scores I'd like to see -- period. All the other stuff is superfluous baloney to redirect the attention of the public away from the simple fact that they don't want me to see the scores for some reason.
For those who care to connect the dots: Know that the same law firm that represents the school district happens to represent the Monroe Township Municipal Utilities Authority, where I've directed the council to respond to the public outcry concerning recent rate increases and alleged overcharges. When the public knows the rest of the story, the headline has an entirely different meaning.
Frank J. Caligiuri
President
Monroe Township Council
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