Category Archives: General Interest

Today I started to watch a YouTube video – homesteading/prepper genre – and I got so fed-up that I unsubscribed and decided I’m done watching that channel. The person was talking about the situation in the Middle East and insinuating that Israel allowed this Hamas attack to happen or had something to do with it, by framing it with, “how could Hamas get through the Israeli border?” and that’s the right-wing TPUSA guy, Charlie Kirk’s, framing that it must be some kind of Jewish conspiracy that’s been racing around right-wing social media, rather than that Hamas found ways to breach the Israeli high-tech border security system and launch a very carefully planned and executed attack – this was a sophisticated attack from the reports I’ve read online. I’m not assuming this person meant this as an anti-Semitic statement, but I’m sick to death of the stupid conspiracy theories that race across the Trump-right online spaces. After reading more reports of the atrocities committed, that were just released by the Israeli government, I wasn’t in the mood for this level of stupidity and ignorance.

And yes, it’s stupidity to not have a clue that asymmetrical attacks by forces with way less military power against more highly trained forces and sophisticated defensive systems, are possible and it’s something terrorist groups and guerilla type forces often resort to. Anyone who doesn’t realize that even the most high-tech and sophisticated defensive structure can be breached is an idiot. I don’t know the details of Israeli security, even though I’ve watched a lot of news about Israel over the years, with them coming under attack so often.

Heck, today was the anniversary of the October 23, 1983 Beirut barracks bombing – 241 US service members died in that blast set off by a suicide bomber driving a truck filled with explosives. That attack was linked to Hezbollah. The US invaded Grenada on October 25, 1983. I remember when my husband, who was in the 82nd Airborne deployed. I didn’t know if they were headed to the Middle East or somewhere else. The call came at night to report in with bag and baggage. I was 7 months pregnant with our second child. A lot of major crises can happen quickly. I found this article, How the invasion of Grenada was planned with a tourist map and a copy of ‘The Economist’. Well, I have two of those tourist maps that my husband used to navigate. Afterwards, my husband and some of his friends were sitting in our kitchen and they were talking about the map said, “120,000 warm and friendly people” and laughing hysterically.

There is no such thing as 100% impenetrable defenses, especially the border of a country. Israel had daily crossings of Gazans coming into Israel to work. Here’s an article from September of 2022, Israel okays 1,500 more entry permits for Gaza workers, bringing total to 17,000. This article states, “Israel will raise the quota of work permits for Gazan Palestinians to 17,000 next week, expanding a policy that defense officials view as a means of maintaining quiet on the country’s southern front.” That’s a lot of people coming and going from Gaza and so much for that working out as a means of maintaining quiet on Israel’s southern front.

There are all sorts of books on asymmetrical warfare and frankly, the question I was asking was how Hamas managed to defeat the more sophisticated defensive system the Israelis relied on. I’m sure the IDF and Israeli security forces are piecing this together carefully, because these security failures posed an existential threat to their country.

There are too many Americans, whose entire understanding of the world is all about the present American partisan battles – on the right it’s always the MAGA vs. the Libs and they avidly embrace whatever crazy ideas the MAGA pundit class feeds them. On the left there’s an alarming number of American young people ranting, “Free Palestine” and taking to the streets, ranting anti-Semitic slogans, like “from the river to the sea,” not even having a clue that this is a call for the annihilation of Israel and driving all the Jews from the Jordan River into the Mediterranean Sea. There have been numerous news reports of leftist activists tearing down posters of people being held hostage by Hamas.

This is the state of America and it alarms me.

I pulled out a book to reread today and I highly recommend it if you want to learn how to think through national security issues: National Security Dilemmas: Challenges & Opportunities, by Colin S. Gray. This isn’t some answer book on these complex issues and that’s the thing, you have to do some reading and then do some more reading to understand complex issues. Often I realize new things and realize how I viewed a situation for years was not accurate or I learn more and that added knowledge gets me rethinking my views. In many situations there are more nuances than most people realize, so I like to keep reading and learning more. I also like to listen to people who are subject matter experts and I’ve always read a lot of government reports and I like reading military history and lessons learned reports. But I am terrible at geography and always have to refer to maps.

It’s amazing to me that so many people who’ve never bothered to read anything about complicated situations listen to some yahoo pundit or someone on social media and then believe that’s some brilliant analysis. I’ve read several of the late Dr. Gray’s books and recommend his books and writings if you want to expand your understanding and learn how to think through military strategic issues and national security dilemmas.

Right now, it looks to me like America is facing our most determined adversaries (China, Russia, Iran and I think North Korea has joined the pact) working in tandem to overwhelm America and the West with crises.

If I was a betting person, I’d think China and North Korea igniting some foreign policy fires in other parts of the world is next and them launching some attacks through terrorist proxies inside the US or attacking our troops or interests somewhere around the world would not surprise me in the least.

This is the reality and it’s what our adversaries are doing – to pursue their own interests. it’s not some big Jewish conspiracy or the evil military industrial complex – it’s America’s adversaries are on the move to knock us to our knees. I believe America and the West are now facing the most challenging, rapidly changing and complicated security challenge in my lifetime.

Simplistic blathering about how the American people don’t want to get in any more wars isn’t a luxury we’re going to have if American troops come under increasing attacks and if other big players like Iran, Russia, China, or North Korea start threatening our allies and countries we have made security agreements with or there are more large scale terrorist attacks. We should be bolstering our alliances – especially NATO and our close allies in the rest of the world. Those security arrangements bolster our American security.

On a personal level, I believe everyone should be seriously thinking about personal security, having emergency food and water supplies, and learning to practice situational awareness, which doesn’t cost a thing – just pay attention to what’s going on around you, especially in public places. Don’t walk around in public engrossed in your cell phone.

And even as all this stuff is going on in the world, it’s important to still be grateful for each day and carry on your normal life – because that’s the best thing you can do for yourself and your family.

‘Delight in smooth-sounding platitudes, refusal to face unpleasant facts … genuine love of peace and pathetic belief that love can be its sole foundation … the utter devotion of the Liberals to sentiment apart from reality … though free from wickedness or evil design, played a definite part in the unleashing upon the world of horrors and miseries”.

So said Winston Churchill in The Gathering Storm and it’s tragic that we are having to learn the same lessons less than a century later. We face a rising axis composed of China, Iran, North Korea and Russia that is more powerful than Nazi Germany, more strategically threatening than the Soviet Union. It commands much of the world’s population, has cornered the processing of critical minerals and possesses more than half the planet’s thermonuclear weapons. It is also militarising faster than the West and sowing discord (particularly online) while gaining ever more influence in the non-aligned world, not least Africa where Russian flags are flying in the Sahel.

It is time to wake up and smell the danger.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/5cb92c64-701c-11ee-8275-e4bad3604bca?shareToken=f92eebc4d3000c4aceea50e3a555e82c

The above excerpt is from a piece, While our leaders indulge in puerile squabbles, tyrants seize the moment: Western complacency has allowed China, Iran, North Korea and Russia to amass a frightening advantage, by Matthew Syed, in The Sunday Times. Even if you don’t read the rest of my blog post, I urge you to read Mr. Syed’s piece.

With events in the world changing at warp speed, mostly I want to focus my blog on the big picture events (the geopolitics) and trying to offer a tiny bit of historical background and information I find relevant. I caveat all of this with this is my personal opinion blog and I am not any sort of expert on anything – only a grandma, mother and American citizen, who’s concerned about the divides in America, our thoroughly corrupted information ecosystems that are polluted with lies and more lies, plus I’m very concerned about the lack of loyalty to both our American foundational principles and our constitutional republic, as all these alarming events beyond our shores are swirling.

Unfortunately, petty hyper-partisan politics consume way too much space in our public political discourse and it’s a safe bet most people wait for what their favorite pundits, celebrities, or people they listen to on social media spoon-feed them and then run with that as their hot take about what’s going on. Almost daily it’s some new catchy talking points or phrase that all of a sudden everyone is repeating as if it’s some brilliant analysis. I did say “listen to,” because I doubt most people go looking for more information to read or digging for some background information. I’m trying to add in news links, sources that are useful, and books.

If anyone asked me what’s going to happen, well, I can’t predict what America’s adversaries are going to do, let alone anyone else for that matter, but I think this war widening is more likely than not. I hope I’m wrong.

A lot of people in MAGA political circles seem to believe that Trump was a superhero, who kept America safe and certainly I prefer Trump’s foreign policies and the efforts to secure our borders, but Trump reveled in being America’s Disruptor-In-Chief and fanning divides. That played into the hands of our adversaries and that’s likely why Putin and Xi cheer Trump. Trump says he’s good friends with them (part of the tough guy crowd). With Trump they know America’s top leadership will be in constant turmoil. There are a whole lot of far-left political people who also fomented divides in America (Summer of Love anyone, or how about all the COVID drama). Biden displays glaring weakness dealing with our adversaries, especially China and Iran, and that plays into our adversaries hands too. And add in Biden also aggressively works to divide America, especially when he rages about “MAGA Republicans.” Often I say, “We are doomed with leaders like these,” and “Is this the best America can come up with for leaders?”

The truth is our adversaries have their own policy goals and want to replace America (and the West) as the top dogs on the world stage – this is their objective, regardless who is president here in America. A stronger America and allied West might deter them, but it’s important to realize they have been working for years (decades) to pursue their objectives – long before Trump or Biden were president.

Many of the situations creating flashpoints now – like Ukraine vs. Russia and Hamas vs. Israel have long, long histories. I had honestly hoped we could close the book on having to deal with more radical Islamist terrorist threats, but here we are and it feels like we’re back where we started with 9/11.

This weekend I was looking over my books on radical Islamist stuff and I came across, The Islamic Bomb, by Steve Weissman and Herbert Krosney, which was published in 1981 and that’s the first book I think I read about the threat of nuclear weapons in the Islamic world. I thought about how long this has been a serious threat. This book starts out with Chapter 1, titled: The Bombing of the Osirak Reactor, which occurred in 1981 – it was the Israelis bombing an Iraqi site, where Saddam Hussein was trying to develop nuclear weapons. It kind of feels like we’re always back to square one with the nuclear threat issue and chaos in the Mideast.

Here we are in 2023 and many Americans are understandably sick of foreign wars that never seemed to benefit America and wars that never seemed to end.

America’s adversaries have been flexing their muscles, as America began retreating from our adventures in the Bush-era Global War on Terror and regime change/democracy-building projects, which was followed by the Obama embrace of the glorious “Arab Spring.” Creating power vacuums is always an invitation for other powers to try to fill them. This was going on in the Trump years too, despite Trump’s tougher policies on Iran and it’s escalated dramatically in the Biden years, largely due to Biden’s major public displays of bungled events (like the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle and the Chinese spy balloon fiasco) and very weak foreign policy decisions – especially with catering to Iran.

China is on the move too. Back in June there was this – Chinese warship cuts off US Navy ship, marking 2nd military provocation in week.

Well, now China is threatening Philippine vessels – Philippines say Chinese boats rammed vessels in disputed waters

I feel we’re on the way to a larger war, because Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are flexing their muscles, aggressively expanding their influence and making the moves to pursue their territorial aspirations. This is going to happen no matter who is President, I believe. Unfortunately, America is too politically and culturally divided and disunited, while our adversaries are more united by the day. I’m still hopeful our leaders will wake up to the threats and begin to pull our country together.

In my last blog post I had links to two news articles on Russia and North Korea meeting and agreeing to closer ties – economic and security (that’s military). A few days ago when President Biden gave his speech committing the US to aiding Ukraine and Israel, China was hosting their Belt and Road conference in Beijing, which is ostensibly about international cooperation. Putin was the guest of honor. The Taliban showed up… and so did Viktor Orban (the guy Tucker Carlson was fawning all over). This article at The China Project, Surprise attendees, notable absences, and Vladimir Putin at the Belt and Road Forum, covers who attended and who didn’t.

Senator Mitch McConnell, whom many among the MAGA right loathe, hit the Sunday shows to talk about aiding Ukraine and Israel and he wants to get the aid package through quickly – and there’s talk that additional funding for border security might be included too. It’s become a MAGA default position to rail about aid to Ukraine and McConnell is despised among the MAGA right, so naturally there will be plenty of angry debates. The truth is McConnell explained the reality of the situation in the first minute:

President Biden gave a speech to the nation from the Oval Office last night trying to lay out the case for why American support of Ukraine and Israel matters to us. His speech likely infuriated the far-left and those invested in the Obama foreign policy aims, because Biden stated a very traditional, peace through strength, foreign policy position, when he stated:

“I know the conflicts can seem far away and it’s natural to ask: Why does this matter to America?” Biden said. “So let me share with you why making sure Israel and Ukraine succeed is vital for America’s national security. You know, history has taught us that when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/president-biden-says-us-holds-the-world-together-amid-israel-and-ukraine-wars/ar-AA1iwJmX

His speech meandered around, trying to curry favor with the left, by lecturing on one of their favored “oppressed” issues – fighting Islamophobia, while also giving a shout-out against anti-Semitism. He seemed to focus more on trying to make the case for aiding Ukraine than Israel, but overall he made clear he’s committed America to aiding Ukraine and Israel.

There were a few minor presentation issues, like he was reading his speech too fast and seemed like he was in a hurry to get through it. The speech itself didn’t seem to have a coherent structure to pull together the points into a compelling vision, but it was way more solid than his other rambling speeches and he avoided the usual drifting off topic gaffes or mentioning his son, Beau.

I support America standing firm on aiding Ukraine in their battle against Russian aggression and I definitely am on board with supporting one of our closest allies, Israel, after the brutal Hamas massacre of innocent civilians.

There assuredly are all sorts of opinions on how we ended up where we’re at. Perceived American weakness likely emboldened Russia. Putin is a Realpolitik operator and definitely an opportunistic political pragmatist, so watching the endless political chaos in America, likely made him calculate we are a basket case.

The Biden administration is unlikely ever to concede that their foreign policy failures, like the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle, the 180 degree shift from Trump’s tough stance on Iran to Biden’s kissing Iran’s behind, to even the week-long Chinese balloon flight across America (over our most sensitive military sites) earlier this year, to the shift within the US military from focus on warfighting to General Milley’s gung-ho hunt for white nationalists and Secretary Austin’s going full-woke signaled American weakness. Overarching all of these incidents our American politics have become an endless clown show of chaos, divisiveness and dysfunction.

All of America’s adversaries likely feel emboldened.

Most Americans, myself included, don’t keep up with the internal politics in a lot of foreign countries and I was unaware that Israel has been going through some very contentious internal political upheavals, when Netanyahu tried to change the judiciary, weaken its powers, amidst major opposition and protesting. I had been trying to cut back on how much news I read and look at online and had stopped watching almost all TV news. I decided with all the events unfolding now, I want to pay more attention to news and reading more old news stories to fill in gaps in my understanding.

With this massacre in Israel carried out by Hamas, I was reading more news, trying to understand what’s going on, I was wondering, “Why now?” Israel had been undergoing some serious internal political turmoil in recent months, where even some Army reserve officers protested:

“TEL AVIV, July 18 (Reuters) – Protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul intensified on Tuesday with demonstrations nationwide, and a retired Israeli air force general said 161 of the corps’ reserve officers had vowed to no longer report for duty.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-hit-by-day-disruption-disputed-judicial-bill-nears-key-vote-2023-07-18/

I also suspect that every part of the Biden administration has been thoroughly compromised by political appointees, who have cred within the progressive left, but have even closer ties to governments hostile to the United States. So, on the one hand I’m glad Biden stood up for standing firm against Russia and Hamas, but it remains to be seen if the Team Obama Iranian fanboys will stand firm against Iranian aggression. Iran has ramped up attacks, via proxies, against US troops in Iraq and Syria. However, there’s a bit of disjointed stances on the Trump right too and laments about “proxy wars” in Ukraine and Israel. Well, the thing is Russia, China and Iran are operating through proxies too, arming and training various rogue regimes and terrorist groups.

Yesterday, this news story, Russia Seeks Regular Security Talks With North Korea, China, ran in Bloomberg and ABC News ran this story, Russian foreign minister thanks North Korea for ‘unwavering’ support in Ukraine war:

“LONDON — Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has hailed deepening relations between Russia and North Korea during his two-day diplomatic trip to Pyongyang in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two nations.”

Many Americans, myself included too often, see everything through a red vs. blue lens, but America’s adversaries are on the move to expand and deepen their alliances and to flex their muscles on the world stage and they would likely love if America takes an isolationist position and they’ll be avidly fanning the flames to divide and sow confusion with the escalating propaganda war. We really don’t have the luxury to sit on the sidelines, if we want to maintain America’s standing in the world.

Update: I forgot to add this news link, Biden: Hamas attacked Israel in part to stop a historic agreement with Saudi Arabia, which adds another part of what likely played into why Hamas attacked Israel now. Israel and Saudi Arabia were ready to normalize relations and that’s definitely something Iran and Hamas didn’t want to happen.

Well, I better add a bit here, since I was reading a right-wing site that rips this Biden claim to shreds, saying the reports are Hamas was planning this attack for a long time and that Biden had nothing to do with the Israel-Saudi deals – that was a Trump foreign policy effort, which is true.

The other day I saw a post on Twitter/X speculating that if any Gazan refugees are allowed into Egypt, they’d likely ship them to Venezuela, so they can be assisted to the US southern border. I can’t remember who posted that comment, but it got me googling for more information on Iran’s activities in South America and Latin America. While I doubt Egypt will allow in any Gazan refugees, due to the risk of importing Hamas terrorists and Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers, this person’s speculation brought to mind the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis, that resulted in Europe being flooded with refugees. It also reminded me of the massive political, activist, and media propaganda efforts to guilt the West to open their doors. Most of the same players are involved in this current attack on Israel and trying to cast Israel in the wrong for responding with force to an invasion and bloody massacre by Hamas.

Ron DeSantis, governor of FL and 2024 GOP presidential candidate, announced we should not allow in any refugees from Gaza and he attempted to explain the culture among Palestinians, who it’s a safe bet most of them hold anti-Semitic views and are virulently anti-Israel, not to mention plenty are radicalized jihadists. Palestinian schools teach their children to hate Jews and that they should want to kill them. This has been reported for decades now. UN Watch, a NGO in Geneva, Switzerland, reported on March 14, 2023 report, UN Teachers Call To Murder Jews, Reveals New Report. The UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine. Just so we know what our tax dollars are funding through the UN: “UNRWA schools funded by US and EU indoctrinate Palestinian children to antisemitism, hate and violence.”

Former President Trump has now come out with a similar announcement as DeSantis, saying he would reinstate and expand his travel ban, to include refugees from Gaza.

While it’s easy to get sucked into the pulling at our heartstrings when we see people, especially children, trapped in terrible situations, especially war zones, and America has a long history of providing refuge to people fleeing those situations, but should our leaders take a harder, more pragmatic approach, when it comes to refugees, from places where anti-Western attitudes pervade and the culture is steeped in glorifying jihadist terrorism?

In 2015, there was a Syrian refugee child (whose family was reportedly Syrian Kurds), who drowned off the coast of Turkey when the inflatable rubber boat he was on overturned. Photos of that dead child blazed across media around the world and that little boy became the face of the crisis. Turkey’s leader, Erdogan, a leader who has dealt harshly with Kurds, all of sudden was busily trying to shame European leaders that they must do something – and they did – they took in more and more “Syrian” refugees, who were not vetted and many of them came, not from Syria, but from all over the Middle East and beyond.

I’m a detail person and I did write a blog post in 2015 about this drowned child becoming the face of the Syrian refugee crisis. In one news report of the incident of the boy dying when the inflatable rubber boat sank, there was mention of his body being found and moved on the beach, so that made me wonder if the photo was staged for effect, not that a drowned child isn’t awful. It was just how his body was laying in the water made a big visual impact. Then there were conflicting stories, with the boy’s surviving father claiming the boat’s captain abandoned the boat when the engine failed and he gave conflicting accounts, Then there was an Iraqi survivor, from that boat who claimed the drowned boy’s father was the captain and he was operating the illegal smuggling operation. From Wikipedia:

“An Iraqi survivor from the same boat, Zainab Abbas, who also lost two children from the attempted crossing, told reporters that Abdullah had been presented to her as the “captain”, that he was driving the overcrowded boat too fast, causing it to flip over, and that he pleaded with her while they were still both in the water not to report him to anyone in authority.^[32][33] Abbas said her family escaped out of Baghdad from ISIS and she was angry because all the media attention was on Alan Kurdi and Abdullah Kurdi, and not on her family.^[34] “

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Alan_Kurdi

With this current war between Israel and Hamas, there’s so much propaganda and dishonest reporting that it’s hard to even sift through most of it. Then there’s the reality that many people lie, embellish or shade the truth and often reporters are more political activists or devoted to causes than they are about getting the facts straight. The other day, I posted photos of children taken hostage by Hamas and I thought about it a good bit before posting that, because I don’t like children used in politics, but Hamas did invade Israel and did break into Israeli families’ homes and take these children hostage. Americans were taken hostage too.

The media is running a lot of Gaza’s an “open air prison” and the horrors for the people of Gaza now to build up a drumbeat for other countries to step in and take Gazan refugees, but you can be sure neither Erdogan in Turkey nor any Arab leaders will open their doors to refugees from Gaza – because there’s no way to vet them and they don’t want to risk bringing in radicalized jihadists. But more than one government in that area of the world has been involved in transporting radical jihadism to Europe and America. That’s the truth and it now seems that along with a lot of Americans not wanting any more military adventurism, like regime change or trying to set up western-style democracies in the Muslim world, they also want to completely forget the post-9/11 terrorism lessons we learned. Unfortunately, the radical Islamist brand of terrorism hasn’t forgotten us and they still chant, “Death to America!”

There’s a long history of Iran’s involvement with oil in Venezuela, but here’s a 2020 Atlantic Council piece, The Maduro-Hezbollah Nexus: How Iran-backed Networks Prop up the Venezuelan Regime, which explains how Hezbollah is operating in Venezuela and Latin America, especially with drug trafficking. This article states, “In October 2018, the Justice Department elevated Hezbollah’s status in the United States by listing it as one of the top five transnational criminal organizations (TCO).¹⁰ Naming Hezbollah alongside three major Mexican cartels and the Central American gang MS-13 was a wake-up call for Latin America to realize that, in today’s age, Hezbollah is equal to the cartels in organized crime and terror.

We keep hearing reports of people crossing our southern border, who aren’t from Latin America or South America and are on the FBI terrorist watchlist and invariably right-wing media gives these stories a lot of coverage, while liberal media tries to breeze past them and downplay the threat.

Most Democrats in Washington and the WH downplay the threat of bad actors getting into America, across our unsecured border. A few days ago, our FBI director, Christopher Wray, taking a break from warning about “right-wing extremists, came out and warned that a “Hamas-style” attack could happen here. That “Hamas-style attack was radical jihadist terror, the kind Trump tried to stomp out with the elimination of the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi, and the Iranian terrorist mastermind, General Soleimani. Many Democrats, foreign policy experts and mainstream liberal media people attacked these Trump decisions. The Washington Post dubbed al-Baghdadi an “austere religious scholar.” With Soleimani, whose terrorist plots with providing IEDs to Iraqi jihadists, resulted in killing hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq, Andrea Mitchell, longtime NBC reporter, was hyping him as a respected Iranian military leader and the Washington Post called Soleimani a “revered” leader.

There are already bad actors, funded by the Iranian regime in Venezuela, Latin America and Mexico, who are involved in the drug trafficking with the cartels. Drug-trafficking bad actors are also involved in weapons and human smuggling, so the open border poses a national security threat to America in many ways.

We need to secure our borders and it’s way past time for more leaders to start speaking the truth, instead of being silenced by all this PC virtue-signaling, especially from our liberal media.