Category Archives: Military

May 12, 2016 · 1:12 pm

Time to rebuild the American Team

Our American principles are enshrined in The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution. We are only strong when we are a nation committed to these firm American principles.

In the Army, they build a strong team by fostering Core Values, and it’s these beliefs that unite us into a cohesive team dedicated to one simple mission:

“To defend The Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.”

The founding fathers knew that slavery would be a looming question, that would need to be addressed at some point in the future. They put it off, in order to get southern states on board with ratification. George Washington even left it in his will to free his own slaves.

America is not falling apart because of illegal immigration, which is just one symptom of a dedication to “worship of diversity” over dedication to common civic values and a society complacent with Wholesale Public Corruption, where the collapse of civil order and rule of law attack the very pillars of our Republic.

America sits a divided nation – where every public institution lumbers under the weight of highly-charged factionalized-fighting. One can only wonder what event or chain reaction will set the final collapse in motion. If our Republic is going to survive, the last thing to believe is that “diversity makes us stronger”.

What made America great was not “diversity”, it was diverse people UNITED by a belief in a set of common civic values.

Having common civic values and a common belief in The Constitution would help gird up our once great nation’s crumbling pillars.

Allowing our educational system to be hijacked by those promoting the diversity doctrine, in my opinion, is more of a threat than even illegal immigration. Just look at the craziness going on in American colleges and these are America’s future leaders. Frankly, many of the millions of illegals, who really like living here can be taught American values, as can people anywhere and that’s been what has drawn immigrants to our shores for centuries.

The US military has taken immigrants, who aren’t American citizens, and successfully integrated them into loyal American fighting men, who embrace our values. Obama of course, has busily been destroying the military, because it’s the last bastion in America where American values still ring loud and true – because the military insists on teaching core values and dedication to our mission every day. Every soldier knows what he is fighting for and it isn’t “diversity”.

The thing that should alarm Americans even more than illegal immigration, is that Americans have stopped insisting their own children become American citizens…..

American children are citizens of leftist nostrums and ideas promoted by anarchists and intellectuals dedicated to “fundamental transformation” of America. American children are indoctrinated from K-12 in the diversity doctrine, along with a whole host of other programs geared to destroy children’s TRUST in their parents, traditional values and The Constitution.

This is a decades long endeavor to erode American society.

So, Trump might seem like a quick fix, yet in reality he’s a mercurial huckster, without the firm principles to guide a nation torn asunder with factional divides. And at best, he would serve 8 years and judging by his “divide and conquer” mentality, he will just further fuel the partisan divides, that weaken us. At worst, “The Trump Unpredictable Doctrine” could lead to dangerous and rash actions at home and abroad, leading America into a rapid tailspin, that we can’t recover from. Of course, Hillary offers the same flaming crash.

We need a “revolution” dedicated to promoting Good Citizenship, where we dedicate ourselves to inspiring every American to embrace American ideals and principles.

And we desperately need good leaders, dedicated to uniting us and to rebuilding the American team…

#DefendTheConstitutionAlways

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Filed under American Character, American History, Culture Wars, General Interest, Military, Politics, The Constitution

May 9, 2016 · 10:29 am

Loose threads

Here are some LB foreign policy loose threads I’m pondering:

Cheney – family involved with the Kimberly Kagan Institute for the Study of War

ISW – hired “Dr.” Elizabeth O’Bagy the “moderate Syrian rebel expert” and Political Director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force. O’Bagy also listed in her bio on her ISW report on Syria rebels that her thesis topic was “women’s militancy”. O’Bagy was exposed as not having a doctorate degree and she was fired from the ISW. ( https://libertybellediaries.co… ). Here’s her 2012 ISW report on Syria –http://www.understandingwar.or…

Now, back in early 2013 Senator John McCain took a “fact-finding” trip to Syria and he was led on this trip by O’Bagy and the SETF. He was conveniently staged to be photographed with Syrian rebels, who were later reported to be terrorists. (a set-up)

Sec of State Kerry and McCain both relied on O’Bagy’s reporting on the “Syrian moderates”, yet in 2015 McClatchy reported that US intelligence knew about the radicalization of the Syrian rebels early, yet Kerry and McCain were relying on this young woman’s expertise. ( http://www.mcclatchydc.com/new… ),

Kerry and McCain have often made strange foreign policy flip flops and here they were both selling the advice of this unknown young woman, whose only credentials came from the ISW promoting her as the “Syrian Expert”.

Both Kerry and McCain chose to believe “intelligence” from this unknown young woman OVER vetted intelligence from US intelligence reports.

Keep in mind that stories float about from time to time about both, Kerry and McCain, about inconsistencies with their Vietnam conduct. Even in this weird Trump circus, Trump attacked McCain (inciting a huge backlash). Kerry had that whole “Swift boat” backlash.

Emotions aside, just consider that photo McCain was staged in, on that fact-finding trip to Syria, by O’Bagy and that SETF. McCain became the loudest cheerleader about arming “moderate” Syrian rebels, McCain also immediately hired this young woman, just fired from the ISW for LYING on her resume.

So, after the ISW fired O’Bagy, John McCain turned right around and hired this woman as a staffer and the question I want to know is did O’Bagy ever undergo a security background check or was it waived. She’s still on his staff. O’Bagy had a lot of strange connections

Here’s Kimberly Kagan’s husband Frederick beating the drum for US aiding “Syrian Moderates” –https://www.washingtonpost.com… That piece is priceless – so we’re supposed to wage a half-hearted strike to boost the morale of the Syrian rebels – at the expense of US military credibility…

The other Kagan and his lovely wife, Victoria Nuland are also menaces to US foreign policy. (I have many doubts about this crowd, that manages to routinely steer America into really bad foreign policy messes.

When Russia acted in Syria the ISW provided maps to FOX news and CNN – where the maps differed, the WH narrative and military analysis by the FOX military analysts Gen Jack Keane (also in the board of ISW) and LTC Shaffer did not match the details on the map:

Embedded image permalink

Image from Megyn Kelly’s Twitter- https://twitter.com/megynkelly/status/651207283574083584

generalkeanemap

Image from http://politibrew.com/politics/3298-general-jack-keane-how-russian-airstrikes-will-impact-region

AND

“Syrian official says ‘wide-scale offensive’ launched”
Russian airstrikes in Syria from September 30 to October 5

Gen.Keane pushed for arming the illusive “Syrian moderates” and yet the “narrative” at the time the Russians moved in Syria, the neocon big voices were screaming about the Russians and claiming they were targeting US-backed “moderate” Syrian rebels. The heaviest shot group of attacks on these maps was north of Hama, which these ISW map legends indicate was controlled by Jubhat al Nusra, Syrian rebels or ISIS – 3 maps from the ISW – three different takes on the strikes the Obama narrative and the ISW were ranting were the Russians targeting “CIA trained US Syrian “moderate” rebels. The media and punditry “experts” all went with the “narrative”.

The US military was publicly berated by McCain over the slow pace of the US military vetting and training “moderate” Syrian rebels in some $500 million dollar program. A US general was dragged before a McCain public hearing and berated for incompetency basically. Long before the CIA was shipping weapons from Benghazi to Syria – (Benghazi another spectacular bad policy with lots of hostile foreign intelligence setting up Obama and Hillary). The US military always ends up being the fall-guy for McCain in big show hearings. The US military was having a hard time finding “moderate” Syrian rebels to train (the CIA not so much – guess it depends on the definition of “moderate”) http://www.theguardian.com/us-…

For a flavor of how the US military training of “moderate” Syrian rebels went, even before this staged public humiliation of another US general – here’s what happened when the US military trained the “moderate” Syrian rebel leader that Foreign Policy magazine dubbed the “last best hope for Syria” (http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/… ) – well, the US military trained Jamal Maaroouf and his band of “moderates”. Maarouf then went back into the fight armed with US TOW missiles and declared a truce with ISIS ( https://pjmedia.com/blog/yet-a… )

The US military is being set up by its own government to look weak and ineffectual – aided by the likes of Kerry and McCain and also America’s “greatest” general, who appears to have been set up too by hostile foreign intelligence. Plea deals btw usually mean more serious charges are dropped to make the case go away in cases that are embarrassing to an administration. McCain still calls the “greatest” general in to testify – even though the general was disgraced and showed gross lack of judgment to mishandle sensitive information that contained information on actual human assets on the ground in Afghanistan (these are LIVES his careless and reckless actions put at risk). Yet, he shows up to say whatever he’s been pressured to say and the media still sells Petraeus as the “greatest general of his generation”….

The ISW was instrumental behind the surge in Iraq, but blowback always follows. al Baghdadi went from the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq to the Caliph of ISIS/ ISIS,/IS. al Baghdadi was well known to the US military in Iraq, in fact, he had been held prisoner by the US in Iraq. Yet the Obama administration and the media pretended al Baghdadi came out of the blue. Insurgencies deepen and Salafist terrorists get more radical as they splinter into other groups. America’s greatest general emerged as some new military genius of the ages with his COIN, he had an affair with his biographer, compromised sensitive information and resigned as the director of the CIA.

“The affair brought down the retired four-star general who led U.S. strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Petraeus resigned from his role as director of the CIA in 2012 after it was revealed that he shared with Broadwell eight “black books” that he had compiled in Afghanistan and improperly kept after retiring from the Army.

The binders reportedly contained secret codes and covert identities, as well as overall strategy discussions and security reports. Broadwell kept the books for at least four days in 2011, according to prosecutors. They were seized by the FBI during a 2013 raid on Petraeus’ home. Court documents also show that Petraeus lied about keeping the sensitive information and about giving it to Broadwell, according to the Observer. Broadwell has not been charged with any crimes.”

http://www.ibtimes.com/david-p…

Petraeus was given a slap on the wrist and he had Hillary’s lawyer, David Kendall. The odder part of the Petraeus fall is that socialite, Jill Kelley, who was hobnobbing with the generals at Central Command in Tampa. General Allen was exchanging emails with this woman. She has no connection to the Army, yet she was like a goodwill ambassador hobnobbing at Central Command. Kelley – American citizen, born in Lebanon. I don’t buy into the no profiling – I look at family, ethnic and religious connections, then political to figure out who people are. I wonder if anyone at Central Command ever checked out this woman due to her close connections with top American generals at a highly-sensitive command headquarters.

Cheney and his Kagan connections make me uneasy. I think George H.W. Bush had it right – GWB got some very bad advice. I also suspect our government, at high levels, is infiltrated by hostile foreign intelligence.

So after the mess in Iraq, courtesy of military geniuses, like the Kagans being listened to and the ISW forming, then came the ISW clamor to charge into the Syrian civil war and this entire fabricated “Syrian moderate” wild goose chase. I keep wondering if this ISW is a foreign front set-up and that leads to other troubling questions about those connected to it. Too many bad vibes from that Kagan family and Dick Cheney.

Nothing good comes to American troops from listening to Cheney’s foreign policy advice or the Kagans, imo. Why on earth with Afghanistan poised to fall back into the hands of the Taliban, Iraq a wreck, Libya a wreck, Egypt trying to stabilize from that “Arab Spring” MB takeover, facilitated by the Obama administration would we charge into a civil war where an odious strong-man, who has been a Russian ally for decades and with the Russians’ naval base at Tartus, try to jump into a civil war being waged by ISLAMISTS (of varying degrees of radicalization- but all ISLAMISTS)??? The ISW was a big driver of that push.

Nuland was involved in creating US embarrassments in the Ukraine (Russian speaker btw). Yet her actions in Ukraine created embarrassment for the US with our European allies and the Russians leaked her phone call from an unsecured phone call to the US ambassador in Kiev. I wonder about her too….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/germans-not-amused-by-nuland-gaffe/2014/02/07/66885a02-900d-11e3-878e-d76656564a01_story.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-06/intercepted-phone-call-shows-u-s-role-in-ukraine

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/12/18/meet-neocon-doughnut-dolly-victoria-nuland.html

http://whirledview.typepad.com/whirledview/2011/05/the-strange-appointment-of-victoria-nuland-as-states-spokesperson.html

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/02/first-republican-for-clinton-over-trump-emerges.html

So, Nuland and her neocon husband, switched to support Hillary back in February 2016- So keep in mind that hostile foreign players like to cover all the bases and keep all avenues in to the halls of power in Washington open.

Lots of weirdness

In this Trump show – Trump went out and trashed McCain, being fed bad advice from his advisers (now who is really providing this advice to Trump is an open question – my leaning is Trump was set-up by Clinton operatives, – note Carville and crowd operate like the KGB or old East German Stasi in their opposition research behavior and ruthless character assassinations – planting stories in the media too.. Remember Carville came to notice when Bill Clinton defeated George H. W. Bush and Carville married Mary Matalin… I have had many doubts about how George H.W. Bush got defeated by the Matalin/Carville team (hostile foreign operatives is what I have suspected for years).

In a recent Kerry move the US military suffered another humiliation – https://uk.news.yahoo.com/iran…

Biden is there as an Obama minder – to make sure things don’t get too out of hand – (wonder who Biden is aligned with? Putin or Soros?)

So, partisan politics aside we have Trump and Hillary both running “scorched earth/mass media saturation strategy” as presidential campaigning and that type of INFORMATION WARFARE. This mass media saturation allows CONTROL of the 24/7 NEW cycle in America to a particular political agenda or political figure..

Carville/Begala scorched earth is the military strategy of scorched earth (a war crime under the Geneva Conventions btw) juxtaposed to a mass media battlefield

Mass media saturation is the military strategy of swarming juxtaposed to a mass media battlefield

Combined, they have been ruthlessly used to divide America into hostile, warring factions. Perhaps it’s time to figure out the driving force(s) behind them.

CNN and MSNBC are overrun with foreign operatives, I believe. Ed Schultz is on RT, Soledad O’Brien went to Al Jazeera. Look at Amanpour (Iranian), who pushed for US intervention in Bosnia and can be counted on to set up the US military at every turn. Amanpour btw married into the Clinton administration in the 90s, allowing her even closer access to the State Dept goings on . Former Carville/Begala partner is at ABC, with his church-boy smile and persona.

FOX News is a foreign-owned corporation that fuels agitation propaganda on the right, to incite flag-waving Americans.

FOX just helped Trump wage the GOP Insurgency with 24/7 scorched earth/mass media saturation for Trump. Hillary has a MB agent by her side. I believe Obama has an Iranian agent by his side and an Arabist (close Saudi ties/perhaps devoted Muslim) at the CIA.. Trump is being fed advice by some really bad advisers – time to find out who is really playing Trump. Trump was fed those fascist memes and sold on that “committing war crimes as serious policy” idea from some political advisers. In my opinion, it looks like Putin would rather deal with Trump (hence the 24/7 Trump show on FOX, but Soros wants Hillary and either way the Russians and Chinese, who are ramping up military aggression against US forces, have all of Hillary’s emails, so they can blackmail her at will.)

This goes way beyond partisan politics.

We are infiltrated all the way to the top.

America’s national security is at stake.

Big picture/little picture

#DefendTheConstitutionAlways

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Filed under Culture Wars, Foreign Policy, General Interest, Military, Politics, Public Corruption, Terrorism, The Media

May 6, 2016 · 9:50 am

A really great commencement address

Here’s one from the LB archives, a terrific commencement address from a couple of years ago:

Don’t Back Down From The Sharks!

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Filed under American Character, Culture Wars, General Interest, Military

May 4, 2016 · 6:47 am

A GOP Post Mortem

Out of a field of 17 GOP candidates, you can track which ones the Clinton machine wanted out of the race most, by the relentless scorched earth character assassinations and as soon as any of them got even a bump in the polls, Trump moved to brand them and the mass media saturation with relentless chatter of talking heads and polls, aided and abetted him. Drudge was an amazing agitprop agent, but FOX News too – all in for Trump, except for a short span where FOX wobbled. They are so in for Trump that they’re like Soviet apparatchiks reading prepared scripts. FOX is a foreign-owned corporation – not loyal to America or American interests – they work to fuel constant agitprop among the right.

So, there were two so-called “insurgents” left and Cruz positioned himself early on in the campaign to cater to Trump. It took his wife being viciously attacked before he finally took a stand. So don’t be surprised, despite the attacks on his wife, if Cruz, who had made no friends in the Senate and stands on principle, will come out and proclaim he’s all in to unite the party. Don’t be surprised if Trump makes a deal with Cruz. Too many strange things in the Trump and Cruz campaigns.

Toss out all the psychological claptrap and look at the nuts and bolts, because it will make figuring out the cast of characters go much faster. The most tightly knit groups are first the family, then the ethnic and religious groups people are reared in. Political ideology is a potent factor too, but it’s power only exerts a great deal of influence over the most ardent believers. The first three, family, ethnic and religious ties are much tighter and harder to break.

Here’s what I see:

Obama – loves Alinsky (a far-left radical, founder of community organzing, btw) community organizer in far-left activist central, Chicago, parents Marxists, grandparents Marxists, father also a rabid anti-colonialist, mentors , all Marxists, into black liberation theology, connected to many Marxist activists, like Van Jones and closest adviser is Valerie Jarrett, a Chicago far-left activist, whose parents were Communists.

Hillary – far-left radical Alinskyite with a Muslim Brotherhood companion, husband an epic philanderer, epic corrupt politician, but he’s likely the most brilliant political strategist in America. She sucks at strategic-thinking and diplomacy, but she’s a world-class liar and at plotting revenge.

Trump – the biggest dupe in American history, “great” crony capitalist, got conned by Clinton operatives, the very same ones who introduced the “war room” to American politics, with such lovely strategies to take American politics into “information warfare”…. endless agitprop to divide America into hostile, frothing enemy camps – BLM and neo-nazis set to clash in Cleveland…

And then there’s

Cruz – whose father “might” have been a communist and the Clinton scorched earth team (Trump’s real political advisers, likely one step removed and being run through a surrogate – Lewandowski is my guess) dug up this Lee Harvey Oswald story (they don’t just find the skeletons in the closet, they dig up the dead and examine the bones).

I’ve always thought the Clinton sewer rats who latched onto Bill Clinton, a pretty centrist good ol’ boy, operate like the old East German Stasi or KGB in their “intelligence-gathering”. They introduced “information warfare” into American politics and their spin/talking points which is mass media saturation strategy (military swarming strategy in an information battlefield), impeachment brought out their mass media saturation coupled with ruthless character assassinations and take no prisoners assault (scorched earth – a war crime in real war).

Trump launched scorched earth against the GOP and GOP candidates. All supposedly with barely any staff or money spent – that is a YUGE lie.

Cruz’ gimmick with the Trump supporter who had all the snappy comebacks the other day – looked kind of fake to me. It reminded me of the Trump supporter in Chicago holding a “Vets for Trump” sign, who had this whole soliloquy prepared about Reagan coming to his school as kid – seemed like he was scripted. Just like that leftist plant at a Trump rally in the Fall with the prepared memes. This stuff is staged agitprop and the media rolls with it – no questions asked – not even, what is your name. That Chicago Trump supporter said he wasn’t a vet – someone just gave him a sign and that FOX reporter talked to him a long time. The media sells this nonsense as part of the manufactured controversies to keep America roiling in anger and division. During the Baltimore riot mess, the street thugs stood down and there is Geraldo on the street talking to thugs and praising them – they were anarchists, and sure sounded like they were given their talking points, when the public reaction to the rioting started turning on them. That black grievance agitprop is orchestrated in collusion with the Obama administration… The media just runs with stuff, no fact-checking or even getting a name, they turn this man-on-the-street staged agitprop into national conversations on TV news punditry to create a national dialogue….

I avoid the feelings and psychobabble or the endless dissection of polling data and focus groups crap and try to identify the messages being sold and how often they are repeated to create opinion cascades. The Left is down to hashtag messaging, while the Right still tries to “win the debate” – you can’t win against a mass media saturation swarming with talking points – talking points are like the commercial jingles that get into your head and you can’t forget them. There’s no “debate” to be won and Trump gets this – he is a salesman and his comment about how he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and his supporters would remain loyal or his comment that if his crowds started leaving his rallies, all he had to do was start yelling “build that wall”………he’s a con man who knows his marks. He never bothered to come prepared to “win a debate” – he was there as a hit man, prepared for character assassination hits. The media sold his character assassinations as winning though. The GOP candidates played checkers and Trump was playing sophisticated information warfare. Once Rubio and Cruz tag-teamed him and made him look stupid – he bailed on debates.

And out of all the campaign spokespeople in America, Trump who hires the “best” picked Katrina Pierson – a Tea Party volunteer for Cruz’ Senate campaign, a woman with ethnic slurs in her social media, and a woman who was alleged to have had an affair with Cruz. How on earth did she come to Trump’s notice??? Just like I believed that Fields/Lewandowski controversy was staged. I suspect Cruz ,the other insurgent, might be a YUGE fraud too- a candidate who moved ever further to the right of Trump and although he’s a brilliant man – positioned himself so far out of the mainstream, kept the wacky religious sideshow with Beck going, and used bizarre rhetoric that he knew was inflammatory “carpet bombing” … In IN things got too strange – the Carly announcement, and even Heidi Cruz, knowing the sensitivity about Trump hyping the Cruz birther issue, she was saying Cruz is an immigrant??? If a Cruz/Trump pact emerges the GOP should be very worried – their party was taken over by the two “Insurgent” campaigns.

Sure the party politics in DC is a sea of corruption and needs to be cleaned up – but Trump is a crook – that is what crony capitalism is – buying politicians and he’s an extreme narcissist, who can be easily played – just tell him he’s “great” and he loves you… Cruz – I am not sure what he is – another mystery like Obama. Cruz was down on the border handing out teddy bears to those swarms of illegals with Glenn Beck, then he’s tough as nails on illegals now – just like Trump was for and against illegals, abortion, and his enablers sell him as he doesn’t have any ideology – he’s just all about “Make America Great Again”….

Look, this scorched earth stuff is planned by ruthless Leftist professional operatives who already had this research dug up long before the 2016 campaign even kicked off. They track every move these candidates have made from birth and they send operatives to talk to people, to pour through court records, and every government file they can get their hands on – they aren’t like Republican opposition researchers. Trump had perfectly timed character assassinations with coordinated media stories planted to fuel it, but a shell of a campaign staff (a Potemkin Tower). Trump initially had Roger Stone, one of the dirtiest poltiical operatives in Republican politics and even he choked on Trump’s scorched earth after the “bleeding out of her wherever”, so Trump was getting advice elsewhere and on the Right, I can’t imagine him finding much deeper into the sewers than Stone. He ran Carville/Begala scorched earth…

The bizarre antics of Cruz, the least liked candidate and most far-right, was allowed to be left standing as the other “GOP Insurgent” and now they will “unite” the party they took down. Cruz’s campaigning with the aid of bizarre religious antics and Glenn Beck’s wacky prophecy crap, made even many on the religious right uneasy, but he was left standing in this scorched earth campaign??? It’s was all staged agitprop. I still believe that Tea Party movement should be carefully investigated, along with all these Soros-funded agitprop on the Left. Bad vibes from them.

Then there is Kasich, hanging around, as some last-ditch effort at trying to save the party from the hostile takeover perhaps , BUT reports say he has gotten funding from Soros.

In the larger big picture, there were two hold-outs to Obama’s “fundamental transformation”, which is aided by hostile foreign intelligence infiltration. – the US Armed Forces and the GOP – both are being dismantled at a rapid pace – and volatile ethnic and race clashes are being deliberately fueled.

The GOP leadership should demand the FBI investigation expand the Clinton Criminal, Inc. investigation to this deliberate sabotage of the GOP primary. There is nothing to be gained by getting behind Trump, a vile corrupt crony capitalist, who either knowingly used scorched earth against his “fellow” GOP candidates or he was duped into using it, a strategy that would assure a weakened GOP in the general election.

#NeverTrump&Hillary
#NoMoreScorchedEarth
#SayNoToPublicCorruption

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Filed under Culture Wars, General Interest, Military, Politics, Public Corruption, The Media

May 2, 2016 · 10:43 am

A thought to ponder

Carville/Begala scorched earth is the military strategy of scorched earth (a war crime under the Geneva Conventions btw) juxtaposed to a mass media battlefield

Mass media saturation is the military strategy of swarming juxtaposed to a mass media battlefield

Combined, they have been ruthlessly used to divide America into hostile, warring factions. Perhaps it’s time to figure out the driving force(s) behind them.

What Wins Wars

Source: What Wins Wars

2 Comments

Filed under General Interest, Military, Uncategorized

April 29, 2016 · 6:19 pm

Pentagon Warns of Conflict Over Chinese Buildup on Disputed Island

China’s plans to build up a disputed island near the Philippines could lead to a regional conflict

Source: Pentagon Warns of Conflict Over Chinese Buildup on Disputed Island

Another dire U.S. military readiness warning

This morning FOX News ran a report about the alarming state of readiness in Marine aircraft, along with their requisite “military expert” commentary from General Jack Keane. The US Armed Forces has been in an endless state of war since 2001, so this dire readiness state rests as a natural outcome. Some truths hold true for eternity and one of those truths comes from Sun Tzu, in the chapter on Waging War:

2. When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.

3. Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.

4. Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.

5. Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.

6. There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.

http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html

Everyone in Congress who sits on Armed Services committees and the White House staff, who receive Armed Forces readiness reports, should have been well aware of these looming problems for the last decade. This isn’t just some “new problem” blowing up out of the wild blue yonder; it’s the predictable outcome of more than a decade of protracted war, then compounded by President Obama’s deliberate and willful undercutting defense readiness. When you have an administration more concerned about social engineering than warfighting capability, this decline in military readiness rests as the outcome – the Obama administration deliberately has made decisions designed to weaken the US military – that’s the truth. Now, lacking an ability to prove their “motives”, the Obama chorus will recoil in outrage and insist the President cares about military readiness and national security, so let’s just say the outcome of 8 years of Obama military policy has led to a collapse of American power projection globally and the next administration inherits a US Armed Forces besieged with readiness issues that must be addressed immediately.

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Filed under Culture Wars, Foreign Policy, General Interest, Military, Politics

March 30, 2016 · 3:50 pm

Cutting through the “fog of war”….maybe

Last weekend reports of CIA-backed Syrian rebels fighting Pentagon Syrian-backed militias emerged in numerous news reports. Here’s a LA Times report:

“Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter five-year-old civil war.”

War On The Rocks has a report with a very helpful map, which explains that this isn’t really the case in, “ARE CIA-BACKED SYRIAN REBELS REALLY FIGHTING PENTAGON-BACKED SYRIAN REBELS?” by Sam Heller, March 28, 2016. Heller reports:

“This is complicated, but bear with me. The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are not a monolithic force. Like nearly every other faction in Syria, they’re spread across an archipelago of enclaves nationwide. The SDF units clashing with Syrian rebels reportedly supported by the CIA are not supported by the Pentagon —they’re from a different enclave. The U.S. military is exclusively supporting the SDF in northeastern Syria on the other side of the Euphrates River. The Pentagon-backed SDF east of the Euphrates is fighting the self-proclaimed Islamic State, not rebels with or without U.S. backing.

Allow me to explain.

The confusion around this news story is a result of wartime Syria’s jigsaw-like map of control. The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the SDF umbrella under which they operate are primarily active in northeastern Syria east of the Euphrates River, where they’ve linked what had been two isolated Kurdish enclaves to form a zone of control along much of Turkey’s southern border. But they also control a still-isolated enclave west of the Euphrates River in northwestern Aleppo province called Afrin, as well as a single neighborhood in Aleppo city. Afrin remains separated from YPG/SDF territory east of the Euphrates by a long stretch of Islamic State territory that the U.S. government calls the “Manbij Pocket.”

Before February, SDF units in Afrin had periodically clashed with Arab and Turkmen rebels in northern Aleppo province, including some that reportedly receive arms via a combined intelligence cell in Turkey that includes the CIA. Then, in February, the SDF in Afrin took advantage of the chaos caused by a Russian-backed regime offensive around Aleppo city to attack the rebels from the west and grab large sections of the northern Aleppo countryside. The Afrin SDF allegedly enjoyed Russian close air support against these rebels, although they have publicly denied these reports. Some clashes have persisted since then, but the new SDF-drawn lines have mostly held.”

http://warontherocks.com/2016/03/are-cia-backed-syrian-rebels-really-fighting-pentagon-backed-syrian-rebels/

Please go read the entire article at the War On The Rocks and look at the map, which makes the disposition of the two SDP forces much clearer and makes Heller’s explanation much easier to understand. News agencies should spend some time trying to acquire updated, accurate maps and talk to more analysts familiar with what’s going on before running with these stories. US policy assuredly has been a convoluted mess in the ME for a long time, but having some accurate facts from on the ground should always be sought and might help unravel some of the media’s added knots of misinformation.

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Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Military, Politics, The Media

March 20, 2016 · 10:21 pm

Sweet land of liberty….. (or land of the gullible?) -repost from 2013

As a child, I was scared of my own shadow and a total wimp. The only thing that made me so angry that I would charge ahead, without a second thought, was a bully picking on weaker people. To this day, I’m pretty much the same way. In most things, I back away from a fight and turn the other cheek, but bullies make me see red. Something about a con man exploiting a lot of innocent people makes me want to do battle and there you have why I argue so determinedly to expose the con man, Trump, but back in 2013, I was noticing another con man, Glenn Beck. Although I wanted to believe his patriotic spiel, a lot of red flags popped up, so I’m going to repost a piece I wrote about a Glenn Beck show, where he was giving credibility to an obvious con man, yet the audience, angry at Obama and the Washington pols, were buying into this fraud. Trump with his “great wall” reminds me of the deluxe version of this Beck, con man, selling a fortress community in Idaho called “The Citadel.” So, here’s my June 22, 2013 – “Sweet land of liberty….. (or land of the gullible)?”:

Sweet land of liberty….. (or land of the gullible)?

Glenn Beck had guests on his show who talked about a new gated community they’re putting together called The Citadel. Through a careful, highly selective application process they hope to find people united by their belief in patriotism, liberty, pride in American exceptionalism and preparedness. This community will require everyone to be self-supporting and these organizers, about as efficiently as the central planners in the old USSR, decided to start a firearms manufacturing factory as a means for the first wave of it’s “pioneers” to support themselves. Guess, they miss the humor in a community touting “liberty” as it’s keystone, building a community with central planners setting up all the rules to become part of the neighborhood, to include what you must believe.

So far, this new community exists only on a webpage and the developers don’t even own the real land to build this oasis of liberty. Not to worry about this being a ponzi scheme, they assure you this beacon of liberty will be located somewhere in Idaho, where they’ve thus far acquired land for the weapons factory. Don’t worry that one of the developers has a criminal record for extortion, which he explained away as his being naive about speaking out. Not to worry that if you fill out the application (with it’s $33 application fee) and if you make it through the Skype interview as a worthy new neighbor for the Citadel community, you must begin paying $50 per month to help secure enough money for these developers to actually buy real property to build this proposed community.

What would living be, where liberty reigns supreme, without the central planners specifying, “All homes will be built of poured concrete for exceptional strength and durability” (even the Three Little Pigs had more freedom). Rest assured, you will be free to build your home to whatever specifications you choose. You’ve also got to be part of the community militia and own a firearm to be able to defend the community. So, you’ll be providing business for the community factory, as well as the work force for it.

I’m going to talk about neighbors and the neighborhood I love best, being part of the United States Army neighborhood. We, as all Army families do, moved frequently and lived overseas as well as all over the US. From my very first days around the Army decades ago, one of the most amazing opportunities to me was to actually be able to meet people, up close and personal, from all over the United States. Due to the traveling and also soldiers’ propensity to marry women in far-flung locales, I even met many people from all over the globe. My husband retired from the Army more than a decade ago and we live in a typical southern town next to a large US Army installation with a population like an international smorgasbord. Just a few days ago, my primary care doctor, who is Syrian, was talking about the situation in Syria and he pulled out his cell phone to show me pictures of his parents home, where the next-door neighbor’s house had recently been bombed. His parents are here living with him, so thankfully they are safe.

From a post I wrote in January titled, “Multiculturism My Way”, you can glean that I consider the world “my neighborhood” too and even growing up in the backwoods of rural PA, I longed to meet people from all over the world. Luck definitely lit my way in life, because it’s been a privilege to have a retired solider hand me a slip of paper that opened the door to first meeting people all over the globe and then to spend decades as part of the US Army neighborhood, where patriotism shines bright. It’s been an opportunity to meet wonderful neighbors and hopefully to be a good neighbor too. So, I want to talk about my neighborhood, where all the values this proposed phony Citadel scheme purports to value is part of the very fabric of the US Army community.

Soldiers believe in a strong national defense, almost down to the last man and woman. Soldiers believe in patriotism too and a cloak of values shields our neighborhood: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service , honor, integrity, personal courage (Army values here) As the standard-bearers of General George Washington’s army, we certainly take very seriously the trust invested in us to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. Unlike these, hummm, I’m searching for a word that isn’t a cuss word, because ‘jackasses” came to mind. Here, I’ll settle on calling them deluded people, unlike them, the Army community is strong enough to welcome people from all over the US and the world and still be a place where our values flourish. In basic training at Fort Dix, NJ, I learned about how a foreigner seeking citizenship, could acquire it by serving in the US Army. So, we’re strong enough to welcome diverse people into our ranks and still stay true to our values.

I had all kinds of neighbors living in the barracks as a young private and once I married we found wonderful neighbors everywhere we lived – on Army posts, in German villages and in civilian communities in America. I’ve managed to make friends and learn a heck of a lot by embracing people who are different than me. I’ve learned to make some darned good egg rolls from an Army wife from Thailand, who came to my home and spent the afternoon showing me. I’ve acquired recipes galore and much more. I had an Army wife from Korea (who married a Cuban guy) show me how to make sushi (yes, I know Japanese, right) in her kitchen. She was trying to learn how to make Cuban dishes. I learned to prepare many German dishes from numerous German friends. I had a Cuban neighbor in one neighborhood, who loved to cook and she was constantly bringing food to me and telling me, “here try this, you’ll love it!” and I did. That Cuban lady was friends with my next-door neighbor who was Puerto-Rican, so I often got a combination of foods to try. When my oldest daughter was in kindergarten, I met a Lebanese neighbor down the street and she asked me to bring my kids down to her house to play with her son, who was my daughter’s classmate. We became friends and I learned about Lebanese food, because this family ran a Lebanese restaurant. Lebanese food ranks as some of the best food in the world.

In my food from around the world saga, I can’t leave out this wonderful Southern lady, who was married to a retired Special Forces soldier, who lived down the street from me when we lived off-post at Fort Bragg. This wonderful lady and her husband had adopted two special needs children and this lady struck up a friendship with me, because her little daughter was the same age as my oldest daughter. This lady taught me about Southern cooking and boy, she loved to cook. She often would call in the morning and tell me to bring my daughter down to her house and she’d list the lunch menu and many times she’d say, “come early and we can chat and I’ll show you how to cook”….- fill-in-the-blank with a Southern dish.

Now, some of my forays into international cooking do go awry and I provided a good laugh for my youngest daughter’s friend several years ago when she was in my kitchen watching me roll up burritos. This neighbor has a Mexican mother and she had this dismayed look on her face and said, “What are you doing!” She told me how to properly roll up burritos and I am sure her mother got a good laugh out of her story about my pathetic burrito-rolling skills, but hey, this girl loves my potato salad, so we all have our strong suits:-)

I must confess that my favorite cuisine is authentic Chinese. Unfortunately, I never met a Chinese woman to come teach me how to cook Chinese food. I do have a friend who is half-Japanese who offered lots of advice on Japanese cooking, but I’ve been winging it on Chinese cooking with cookbooks and experimenting over the years. When I did volunteer work at the American Red Cross doing Red Cross messages, a lovely Puerto-Rican friend frequently brought in food. I learned that the Caribbean is sort of an international mishmash of cultures and thus I still use this handwritten recipe from this friend called , “Puertorican Chinese Arroz”, where she helpfully put “rice” in parentheses.

What’s magical about Chinese cuisine, as well as their culture, is how they take what little they have and through a long, long history, as one of the oldest cultures on earth, developed ways to adjust and thrive, through good times and bad. Chinese people demonstrate amazing resilience. Their cooking encapsulates this, how with a few varied cooking techniques or a few spices, they can take a few simple ingredients and turn it into something unique and flavorful. The Chinese spirit to adapt and persevere always amazes me. Of course, they offer Sun Tzu too, which I just love- all that ancient wisdom on military strategy that still resonates today;-)

This is a true story about a neighbor I had one time – a lovely, good neighbor with a very kind heart and the kind of trusting soul – like the type of people who will start sending money to some schemers like these Citadel planners (yes, this liberty-based community is a “scheme” – it exists only on their webpage). We were living in military quarters in Germany at the time and my neighbor (a lovely German lady) was preparing to move back to the States with her soldier husband. My neighbor had an extensive David Winter cottage collection, which she decided to sell. She sold them to a soldier who didn’t have the money up front, so she accepted a stack of postdated checks, which she agreed to deposit each month and he assured her that he would have money in this checking account to cover them. I urged her to hold on to her collection until she found a buyer with cash in hand.

That same neighbor was planning to buy some lovely lakefront property in the US, dirt cheap and sight unseen, but she needed to send money fast before someone else snatched up this almost too good to be true deal. I forget where she heard about this property, but I begged her to hold on to her money until she got back to the US and could actually walk around this property and see what she was buying. When I thought her naive trust had reached its limit, she told me about this puppy her dog had. Her close friend down the street headed back to the States and my neighbor said her friend was going to send money to her to fly that puppy back to the States as soon as they were settled at their next duty station. The friend had said she wanted the puppy, but then had endless excuses why she couldn’t take the puppy with them. I gently tried to tell my neighbor that if her friend had really wanted that puppy, she would have taken it with them when they left. Naturally, my neighbor was stuck keeping that puppy.

My neighbor would help anyone and she had a wonderful sense of humor. She was the type of neighbor I loved having and you know I couldn’t tell you exactly what her politics were, nor did I ever think about her patriotism. What I did value was that if I needed a helping hand or help in an emergency, I knew she would do whatever she could to help me. I judged her on her character and she had a sterling character, albeit a bit too trusting of a soul. It might be better to teach your kids to respect and value people with differing views rather than enclosing your family behind a fortress to shield them from people with different views.