Category Archives: Military

February 7, 2015 · 8:38 am

Dishonoring a real war hero – another Obama narrative

Well, the Obama administration bent over backwards to portray Bowe Bergdahl as an American war hero and now, according to this disturbing Washington Free Beacon story, “Afghanistan War Hero Stripped of Silver Star”, a real decorated war hero, US Army Major Matt Golsteyn, has had his silver star war medal for heroism while serving in Afghanistan, revoked by Army Secretary, John McHugh. According to this report by Aaron MacLean:

“In 2011, shortly after a book by author and Marine Bing West came out that detailed Golsteyn’s heroism and quoted him making critical remarks about the American strategy in Afghanistan, I learned that the Army had launched a criminal investigation into his actions during the battle. (Again, full disclosure: I was also interviewed for that book, The Wrong War, and make a brief appearance in it.)

The investigation, apparently, had nothing to do with the acts of bravery that earned Golsteyn his medal. Instead, according to the Washington Post, which cited officials familiar with the case, it concerned “an undisclosed violation of the military’s rules of engagement in combat for killing a known enemy fighter and bomb maker.” The investigation stretched on for nearly two years, during which time the Army effectively put Golsteyn’s career on ice. In 2014, Golsteyn and his lawyer were informed that the investigation was finally complete. No charges were filed, but Golsteyn still wasn’t released from administrative limbo.”

The article goes on to chronicle how Congressman Duncan Hunter got involved in trying to find out what was going on with Major Golsteyn’s career freeze. Secretary McHugh responded by taking the extraordinary action of revoking Golsteyn’s silver star decoration with no charges ever being filed against him or any evidence being produced to justify having his honor being questioned by such a public display. This is the Obama run Pentagon, the narrative gets rewritten, deserters get cast as “heroes” and true war heroes get publicly dishonored and smeared as war criminals. Just another day in the morally-bankrupt, fundamentally transformed America with our fearless leader-from-behind (the scenes) stealthily destroying our military from within.

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Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Military, Politics

February 5, 2015 · 3:32 pm

A view from across the pond

Many thanks to David Duff for allowing me to repost his latest blog post. He chronicles failed western foreign policy in Ukraine and Russia quite succinctly and with a bracing dose of honesty. For more of David’s wit, military history writing and piercing foreign policy analysis, please stop by his blog, Duff and Nonsense.

Pity the poor statesman!

by David Duff

Oh, go on, give it a try because sometimes, just sometimes, you have to feel sorry for them. Take the Ukrainian imbroglio for starters. No-one can be certain until the history books are written – and by then will I give a toss? – but in my uninformed opinion it has been foolish western, and mostly European, over-reach which has provoked the current belligerent response from Russia. Instead of gradually edging ever closer to Russia’s exceedingly sensitive borders, western leaders should have leap-frogged over the old Warsaw pact nations decades ago and made every effort to entice Russia itself to become part of Europe. Instead, by our gradual advances we have stoked their fears and resentments and driven them into the arms of the Chinese as well as providing their ‘gangsta‘ government with yet more excuses to harden their grip on the populace.

Well, we are where we are and now our ‘statesmen’ – who giggled? – need to decide how to proceed in the face of increased militarism from ‘Vlad the Impaler’ in eastern Ukraine. I have just read two articles on the subject, one from The Streetwise Professor and another from Max Boot at the Commentary site. Both are gung-ho to send in serious military aid to the Ukrainian government particularly in regard to sophisticated anti-tank missiles. Their deployment and use would not only inflict serious material losses but would also cost the Russian suppliers a small fortune which, happily at the moment, they do not have! Alas, shipping them, setting them up and training the Ukrainian army in their sophisticated use would take a considerable time and that may be one commodity we do not have because ‘Vlad’ seems determined to seize and hold the eastern Ukraine.

Let us suppose he succeeds, what then? Possession is, famously, nine tenths of the law, so will we encourage the Ukrainians to beef up their army and counter-attack in order to take back what is rightfully theirs? Well, if ‘Vlad’ is feeling down the back of his sofa to find the odd rouble to finance his war-games then the Ukrainians do not even have a sofa – they burned it to stay warm through this winter! There-in, perhaps, is our way out. The Ukrainian government is dead broke and will require enormous financial assistance from the West just to get its economy on the move. We might be able to help a bit with that but re-arming and re-training its army would be prohibitively expensive. Certainly there would be some complaints in Britain whose political class is determined to slash our own armed forces to a sort of ‘Dad’s Army‘ level.

The critical question is simple but deadly – are we prepared to fight for eastern Ukraine? If the answer is ‘no’ then we should stop bluffing. Then the next question rears up. Are we prepared to fight for western Ukraine should ‘Vlad’s desperate need to distract his impoverished people from realising they have a kleptocratic loony in charge drive him to ‘go, west, young man, go west’? In my view the answer is still ‘no’. But then ‘Vlad’s ambitions will have been well and truly whetted and he will begin to flex his pecs in the direction of the Baltic states, all of whom contain large Russian populations eager to suckle Mother Russia’s teats again. Do we fight for them?

Yes, I think on the whole being a blogger with absolutely no responsibility is infinitely preferable to being a prime minister or a president.

10 Comments

Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, History, Military, Politics

February 4, 2015 · 8:56 am

General George Washington enters the vaccine debate

America suffers from a plague! No, it’s not an epidemiological type, but a deadly strain of political cowardice and vacuous pandering. Here we are in 2015, with supposedly educated “leaders” from both sides of the American political spectrum parsing and prevaricating on the wisdom of having children vaccinated against illnesses, which can prove fatal.

Up first, Rand Paul tweets a photo of himself receiving a booster vaccination Tuesday, after stating on Monday (http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/rand-paul-vaccines-can-lead-mental-disorders-n298821) :

“In an interview with the network Monday, Paul said that vaccines are “a good thing” but that parents “should have some input” into whether or not their children must get them.

And he gave credence to the idea – disputed by the majority of the scientific community – that vaccination can lead to mental disabilities.

“I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines,” he said.”

Chris Christie also straddled the fence on the vaccine issue, before coming down on the vaccinate children side, but including that parents should have a choice.

Then, yesterday, Hillary Clinton, one never to pass up an opportunity to take gutless political positions, boldly proclaims she’s all for vaccinations, but in 2008 she was playing along with the totally unproven pop culture linkage of autism being caused by vaccines (full story here):

“But in the 2008 campaign, Clinton herself raised questions about vaccines. “I am committed to make investments to find the causes of autism, including possible environmental causes like vaccines,” Clinton said in the 2008 campaign, suggesting a possible connection between autism and vaccines.”

Now, “Grandmother Hillary knows best” tweeted :

“The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let’s protect all our kids. #GrandmothersKnowBest“

Oh how I long for a strong, morally upright, forward thinking leader for America – in the image of my hero, General George Washington, who ordered the inoculation of the Continental Army for smallpox in 1777. He didn’t focus group test the matter, no, he made an informed decision to best protect his troops. George Washington survived small pox as a young man, despite small pox’s mortality rate of 30%.

In 1776 a small pox epidemic broke out in Boston, which was under siege by the British army. General Washington forbade refugees from Boston to come near his troops. From Mary V. Thompson, research historian at Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens:

“While Washington believed wholeheartedly in the efficacy of inoculation, in May of 1776 he ordered that no one in his army be inoculated; violations of this order would result in severe punishment. The summer campaigns were about to begin and Washington could not afford to have a large number of his men incapacitated for a month, vulnerable to attack by the British. Washington eventually instituted a system where new recruits would be inoculated with smallpox immediately upon enlistment. As a result soldiers would contract the milder form of the disease at the same time that they were being outfitted with uniforms and weapons. Soldiers would consequently be completely healed, inoculated, and supplied by the time they left to join the army.”

Really, this is 2015 and we’ve got politicians so afflicted by the disease, widely believed to cause atrophy of all functioning brain cells – full-blown political correctness. Really, it’s true, just judge for yourself, as you watch them slither along, unable to articulate coherent thoughts. Sorry, there is no hope of survival for those afflicted by this dreaded disease and like General Washington’s policy in 1776, avoiding contact with them offers the best hope that you can emerge unscathed, a free critical thinker, with your brain cells intact and functioning.

3 Comments

Filed under American History, Culture Wars, General Interest, Military, Politics

January 26, 2015 · 11:58 pm

New York Times Discovers Yemen’s ‘Death to America’ Houthi Rebels are Moderates and Possible U.S. Partners

New York Times Discovers Yemen’s ‘Death to America’ Houthi Rebels are Moderates and Possible U.S. Partners.

Here’s a must read article from the always excellent Patrick Poole at PJMedia.

The Yemen “Success” Story In Flames

Malcolm Pollack wrote an excellent post on the Houthi coup in Yemen, “Rock and Roll, Houthi Coup”. Malcolm compiled the pertinent facts on Yemen being another Muslim failed state, clinging to the edge of the cliff – economic despair, a population reliant on government for its basic needs, a water supply imperiled by khat production, and internecine fighting. He states:

“About Yemen, President Obama — who, when it comes to foreign policy and a whole lot more, has been described of late as “King Midas in reverse” — had this to say back in September:

This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.

As always, up is down, black is white, etc. Meanwhile, this:

The collapse of the U.S.-backed government of Yemen on Thursday has left America’s counter-terrorism campaign “paralyzed”, two U.S. security officials said, dealing a major setback to Washington’s fight against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a potent wing of the militant network.”

I recommend you read his entire excellent post. Now, along with collapse of the Yemeni government, to the north, Saudi Arabia’s relic of a king passed away. So, we’ve got the “kingdom” of Saudi Arabia passing the crown to a 79 year-old, who reportedly suffers from dementia, while the court swarms with intrigue. Now, this kingdom feels threatened on all fronts – existentially from Shia expansion, from radicalized Sunni/Salafi Islamist groups, and from crashing oil prices. In reaction to these external threats they’re building walls (a defensive posture) to keep foreign dangers at bay and bankrolling President Obama’s half-hearted battle to defeat IS/ISIL/ISIS (a money down the drain effort). John McCreary’s Nightwatch predicts, the new king will likely move toward more conservative domestic postures, which makes sense, to try to preserve power and maintain political stability within the kingdom. Nightwatch’s analysis states:

“Be prepared for policy changes. The instinctive reaction of living systems is to contract during times of internal stress, and even more so during a leadership crisis. Leadership transition is a time of vulnerability. Most systems increase their defensive vigilance during that period.

Applying that to Saudi Arabia, guards will be extra vigilant to protect the new King and the Crown Prince. Restrictions on population movements and border controls usually tighten. Dissidents and miscreants usually go to ground for a while.

The protective and defensive instinct also applies to policies. That instinct ensures the continuation of the bedrock principles of a state, but not necessarily more discretionary initiatives. In Saudi Arabia, the monarchy, Wahhabism, the tribal heritage and oil are four of the bedrock principles. Experiments in modernity are expendable.

The emphasis in a leadership transition always is stability because when a King dies, the Kingdom can be at risk. Abdallah did all that a reigning monarch can do to protect the monarchy. Readers must expect that his policies and programs will be modified, assuming they survive at all.”

Shia powers smell weakness, as do the radicalized bands of Islamist nutcases, emboldening them to embark on ambitious offensive measures to seize more territory in rudderless states, left from the oh so glorious Arab Spring, our ass backwards, leader from behind, championed. Sorry, namby-pamby, narrative writers at the White House, the rest of the world isn’t in the business of selling Obama t-shirts, Obama policies or the Obama “legacy” (#ChickensCameHomeToRoost), so they already wrote Obama off as a weak, unreliable partner.

So, we’ve got bands of drug-crazed, drug-financed Islamists and batshit crazy Shia mullahs fighting to rule swaths of war-ravaged, barren sand pits, swarming with millions of hopeless, starving, illiterate people. Yemen is just one more to add to the list.

Don’t expect the Obama administration to do more than rewrite their “narrative” and send John Kerry bearing love beads, groveling to the Iranians once more, begging for them to cooperate on Peace in the region. “Up in smoke” goes the Obama foreign policy on Yemen, hailed only months ago as a huge “success” – like Somalia, no less (yep, failed state Somalia is a Obama success too, who knew….). To round out President Obama’s capitulation to the threat we can not name – (Islamic Imperialism) , stay tuned, because soon we will see how, the Iranian regime, Terror Central, incorporates nuclear weapons into their OFFENSIVE MILITARY POSTURE. One can only wonder if the Obama administration has chewed too much khat like the Somalis and Yemenis or scarier to consider, perhaps these stellar graduates from some of America’s finest universities really believe their own ~~bullshit~~, oops, “narratives”.

Psst, no, no, no watch and see, it’s those nefarious “right-wing, gun-toting, clinging to their religion Americans” (ostensibly, those dastardly WASPs) who pose the greatest threat to America. Let me sip another cup of tea:-)

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

January 17, 2015 · 8:57 am

Military justice takes a long winter’s nap

Let me venture atop my soapbox and rail about the Obama administration once again. Today’s topic raising my ire, assuredly one that should have been resolved months ago: an Army decision on Bowe Bergdahl , the US solider who deserted his Army post in Afghanistan. This White House, staffed by far-left ideologues, partisan flunkies, Clinton administration retreads and even campaign workers with no qualifications whatsoever, relies on creating “narratives” rather than following the rule of law. This President, our fearless leader from behind, abdicated his oath of office years ago, yet he still gets a free pass, because the gutless Republicans in Congress fear the backlash that would ensue from impeaching the “first black President of the United States”.

Where the Obama adminstration reliance on “narratives” originated follows a clear historical trajectory from the Clinton spin machine, where the Clinton administration weathered turbulent seas of scandals, both personal and official, by spinning (lying). The Clinton propagandists, Carville, Begala and Stephanopoulos (now heading a major news network), proved that if you repeat a lie often enough and loud enough, it will drown out the TRUTH, where it may wash up on shore at some later date, a mere unnoticed pebble on the beach.

Moving on, to something borrowed, something blue, the Obama administration, crafted a 2.0 version of spin, their illustrious “narratives”, in lieu of crafting serious policy or relying on principles and upholding the Constitution of the United States. Reports have been swirling for months now, alleging the Obama administration pressured the Defense Department to sit on the completed Bergdahl court martial investigation.

Last summer, I wrote extensively about the national security threat that is THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION. They released high-level Taliban prisoners for Bergdahl, then tried to portray Bergdahl as an American war hero. When that stink bomb blew up in their face, instead of admitting their mistake, they rewrote their narrative, using their official offices for massive propaganda efforts directed at the American public. Susan Rice, the President’s National Security Advisor, went on national TV and proclaimed that Bergdahl served with “honor and distinction”, knowing full well that Bergdahl’s status swirled with controversy over allegations he deserted his post. When called on that LIE, she doubled down on the lie.

Now to the present, FOX News has a report by LTC Bill Cowan (ret.), a frequent military analyst there. He writes:

“In White House terms, not charging Bergdahl means that he was indeed worth the trade for the Taliban Five. But charging him on any level means that releasing the five Taliban was an error of monstrous proportions, one the administration will never be able to explain away satisfactorily.

Watch for the announcement, in all likelihood on a Friday afternoon. If Bergdahl is charged, the administration will hope it’s old news by Monday. If he’s not charged, it will be big news for a long time to come.”

Expect many more rewrites to this administration’s Bergdahl melodrama. It wasn’t enough for President Obama to fundamentally transform America. He’s working on dismantling the US Armed Forces too. When soldiers who served honorably end up being cast as psychopaths and liars by a spokeswoman for our State Department (Marie Harf), while a deserter like Bergdahl gets cast as a hero, can our demise be far in the distance?

Let me state in unequivocal terms, I believe this President is the greatest threat to America’s national security. If he succeeds at destroying faith in the chain of command, good order and discipline will crumble, unit cohesion will collapse, and our noble fighting force will have been felled by a shameless pack of partisan LIARS.

Here’s a voluminous list of previous LB Bergdahl rants:

https://libertybellediaries.com/2014/05/31/repaid-in-kind/

https://libertybellediaries.com/2014/06/01/a-soldier-in-good-standing/

https://libertybellediaries.com/2014/06/02/reading-the-three-cups-of-tea-leaves/

https://libertybellediaries.com/2014/06/03/military-jargon-101-or-portrait-of-courage-not/

https://libertybellediaries.com/2014/06/04/they-embraced-it/

https://libertybellediaries.com/2014/06/04/just-the-facts/

https://libertybellediaries.com/2014/06/04/another-lie/

https://libertybellediaries.com/2014/06/04/undue-command-influence/

https://libertybellediaries.com/2014/06/05/the-choices-we-make/

https://libertybellediaries.com/2014/06/06/mendacity-us-proud-alumni/

https://libertybellediaries.com/2014/06/07/enemies-both-foreign-and-domestic/

https://libertybellediaries.com/2014/10/10/bergdahl-update/

Yeah, that last one on the list was from October 2014, when the Bergdahl investigation was completed, but due to White House politics, the investigation is undergoing a winter hibernation – a lengthy review process….

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Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Islam, Military, Politics, The Constitution

January 4, 2015 · 5:33 pm

Seeking Justice

The internet provides an opportunity for any wanna-be writers/journalists to get their scribblings, the good, the bad and the putrid, before the public eye. When I first started writing my blog, I worried endlessly over the myriad of typos and grammatical errors missed in proofreading and my greatest fear was of writing posts that sound stupid. After two years of blogging, there remain plenty of typos and grammatical errors and more often than I would wish, I write stupid stuff. But, I love writing, researching topics that catch my attention and most of all I am so thankful and grateful to have some regular readers and commenters to keep me humble and on my toes. This one’s a personal, lengthy, speaking my thoughts aloud post and it may prove to be very stupid too – so you’re duly warned.

In the past month, I’ve been engrossed in following the Jessica Lane Chambers murder in Panola County, Mississippi. The Last Refuge blog (The Conservative Treehouse), along with several other blogs, twitter folks and facebook pages, has been relentlessly covering this murder case. Jessica’s family and friends hit twitter and facebook pleading for help in solving her murder too – along with asking for donations for reward money for information leading to the arrest of Jessica’s murderer(s) and also money for the medical bills from her brief hospital stay the night she died. Why the family is getting the bills, I don’t know, since Jessica was an adult, but that’s what the family facebook page states. The online journalists also ask for donations to continue their work.

Between the competing online journalists engrossed in this case and Jessica’s family, plus a multitude of locals in Panola County who, likewise, have hit the internet to make their views known, offer their insights into everything from the racial dynamics, the gang situation, decoding regional vernacular, and even climbing out on limbs to paste leaves on the ever-expanding family trees in this colorful forest of characters, whose names parade across the world wide-open field of online “journalism”, the only truth revealed is nature abhors a vacuum! In this vacuum of officialdom (the law-enforcement community), offering no new facts to gnaw on, this case serves as the ebola strain of internet sleuthing.

On December 21, 2014, a commenter, TexasRanger, posted a comment on my blog, warning me to be careful of accepting The Conservative Treehouse’s facts, laying out a methodical listing of open source material belying a stated fact from that blog. I like a lot of the blogging at The Conservative Treehouse, as it quite often fits my conservative political viewpoint, but after watching what can only be described as an unseemly pissing contest, between some online journalist, Charles Johnson, at a news site called Got News (which I used as a source once, God forbid), The Conservative Treehouse and a few other bloggers trying to trash not only the merits of their respective investigative journalism, but now it’s down to trashing each other personally, tread warily.

So, this journalist, Charles Johnson, ran with a scoop yesterday, a phone interview with Jessica Chambers old boyfriend, Bryan Rudd, formerly from Panola County, now residing in Iowa, (criminal record available online). Johnson asked few questions and Rudd rambled on for an half-hour, listing several men, to include Jessica’s father, Ben Chambers (criminal record available online), as potential suspects. Then, Johnson ran the piece trashing the journalistic integrity of the CTH blogger, sundance. CTH followed with a rebuttal.

The flaming went back and forth in comments on twitter, between CTH supporters and Johnson, in the comments on the CTH blog, but then a commenter, carterzest, on the CTH blog did a screenshot of Rudd’s twitter feed (Folk Deundra Nation is the moniker – Folk Nation being a gang, but Rudd claims he’s not affiliated with any gang, moving on…), accusing Charles Johnson of recording their phone conversation without permission (comment posted January 4, 2015 at 3:26am). Rudd has this tweet on his twitter feed dated 11:03 pm, January 3, 2015.

You have to become a screenshot professional to keep up with this mess, and being technologically-challenged, I haven’t mastered screenshots and struggle even trying to upload photos to this blog. Sorry, I can’t post the screenshot photo. Information comes and goes on social media sites very quickly, tweets flutter away, facebook conversations get removed, pages get reinvented under new names, blogs get reworked, reality shifts as the narrative gets revised.

I hope there is justice for Jessica Chambers, but likewise I hope there is justice for the young man, Deandre Joshua, who was killed in Ferguson, MO in a similar brutal fashion. Justice should be for everyone in America.

I know how it feels to want to cry out for justice, having felt that way since 1999. My blog is not investigative journalism – it’s my thoughts, views, opinions and most importantly the one place where I feel like I have a voice. I’ve felt drawn to Jessica’s story, because this young woman was betrayed and brutalized by so many people in her young life. The shroud of lies, trying to bury her case, made me think of my own situation. I wrote about what happened to me in my Messages of mhere story, and yes, that’s the truth, to the best of my recollection and each person mentioned exists – they have real life identities. I’m happy many people are fighting for justice for Jessica, because such a heinous crime calls out for action.

So, for the record, regarding my own situation related in Messages of mhere, tabbed on my home page, I contacted professional reporters and amateurs last year, in hopes of getting someone to help me drag thatwitch2016 to justice (expose how far she went to silence me over my Excite message board postings, under the user name mhere, in 1998). She had all that power and I was just a nobody homemaker, yet she felt compelled to silence me. I was attacked in my own home. This girl Jessica wanted to turn her life around, she got a job in a store, but she was struggling. I feel thankful that I survived, unlike poor Jessica. I got a job in a store too, I finished raising my kids, but that attack damaged every relationship in my life. Her attack screams out though; she lost her life in a horrific manner.

Tenaciousness is one of my best and worst character traits – I dig for information relentlessly, I fight against injustice relentlessly and I’ve been fighting bullies long before it became trendy. All these years, I’ve felt personally violated by the attack on me, but a burning anger goes much deeper that the Army I love was egregiously used and abused too. She, thatwitch2016, through her husband, used Army assets to attack a private citizen on American soil. My husband was still on active duty in the US Army then, so they used a retired general to attack an enlisted family based on lies she conjured up. They corrupted the chain of command using the Army for personal political reasons. I believe this to be the TRUTH and yet, I can’t prove it on my own.

A few years back, I posted some comments on Ralph Peters’ (thepottsvillepundit) column at the New York Post. At that time, I was also writing on my computer about my plan to expose thatwitch2016. Comments on Peters’ column disappeared. my email and facebook accounts were hacked, then back to square one. For me, the very thought that she might become the next Commander-In-Chief of the US Armed Forces, not only disgusts me, it terrifies me.

Jessica’s case highlights small town corruption, where it’s hard to find a hairbreadth’s distance between the integrity of the officials and the criminals. My case goes all the way to the top in America. And just like mentioned above, that online postings can vanish in the blink of an eye – my blog could vanish too.

Last year, I decided to seek help in my fight for justice and I contacted The Washington Free Beacon twice, Bill O’Reilly twice, PJmedia once, That Last Refuge blog twice and Sharyl Attkisson once. I offered them the key to the real identities of every person mentioned in Messages of mhere, except for marfark, because I only knew his user name. I hoped my blog would demonstrate that I write rational, researched stuff, not wild conspiracy theories.

I lay claim to being a homemaker for 18 years and I’ve worked in a store since 1999. I served in the Army shy of two years, getting out when I was pregnant with my first child. I was trained to be an Army journalist, but I make no claims to being a journalist. I’ve tried to be an honest person and a good citizen my entire life. Here’s a message for Jeff (if you’re reading this) I would like my Good Citizen booklet (mentioned in Messages of mhere btw) back, please. I received only one response – from The Last Refuge blog:

“We receive hundreds of emails each week. Since we operate with only volunteer staff we are unable to respond to all of them..

Unfortunately, we cannot conduct investigations on every matter brought to our attention, no matter how valid and well documented.

Thank you for understanding.

Warm regards,

Admin”

That simple courtesy of responding to me made me respect the folks at The Last Refuge blog. I’m not asking them or anyone for help, but I wanted to say my piece today. Yep, posting this is stupid. My personal quest for justice continues alone, in military terms, a Forlorn Hope, a lost cause from a long ago scandal. Jessica’s case is still fresh, with the trail not yet cold. I continue hoping their blog will be a force for seeking justice for Jessica. Let’s hope that with an alphabet soup of federal law enforcement in Panola County, MS and so much online effort, sunlight can vanquish the forces of Darkness in this small town American case crying out for justice. We need every small step toward upholding The Constitution of the United States of America, where corruption pervades at every level, especially at the top.

4 Comments

Filed under General Interest, Messages of mhere, Military, Politics, The Constitution, The Media, Uncategorized

November 16, 2014 · 1:25 pm

Asking the right questions

As a parent, one of the most difficult kinds of children to deal with is the one who doesn’t accept your answers without asking, “why”. Being one such child myself and having not one, but four, yes, FOUR, such children of my own, who refused to accept pat answers, decades ago I realized that sometimes these questions served as pieces to a larger puzzle. Defining that larger puzzle revealed answers to important questions we weren’t even aware needed to be asked.

A couple of weeks ago, I came across a website called BookBub, where you can enter your email address, select categories of books you’re interested in and which type of e-books you want – kindle, b&n, etc. Then you receive a daily email with great e-book deals. So, I’ve been reading one of these BookBub deal books called, “Great Work: How to Make a Difference People Love”, which explores how to create great work, by being willing to ask the right questions. Here’s an example from this book on how a three-year old’s question led to an iconic American invention:

“It was 1944. The Land family was on vacation in New Mexico, hitting some sights and snapping photos. Three-year-old Jennifer had a question that was really bothering her. As described by her father, Edwin, “I recall a sunny day in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when my little daughter asked why she could not see at once the picture I had just taken of her.” Edwin explained to his little girl that the film had to be developed in a special place called a darkroom, and that the negatives had to be printed on special paper. Translated from the perspective of a three-year-old: blah-blah, blah-blah.”

“We all do this in our own way—explain why things are the way they are to someone who questions the expected— as if the current solution is some foregone conclusion, a done deal. Thank goodness Jennifer was a strong-willed kid who was not satisfied with her dad’s answer. She still wanted to know, “Why can’t I see my picture right now?” And that sulky disgruntlement got Edwin to thinking: “As I walked around the charming town I undertook the task of solving the puzzle she had set me.” Three years later, the camera, the film, and the physical chemistry came together as Edwin and Polaroid introduced the concept of “instant” to the photography world.”

Sturt, David (2013-09-02). Great Work: How to Make a Difference People Love (Kindle Locations 531-540). McGraw-Hill Education. Kindle Edition.

Reading about asking the right question leading to new ways to approach a problem led me to wondering if we haven’t asked the right questions in regards to our American foreign policy. The Great Work book offers this bit of trivia about queries:

“When early scholars wrote in Latin, they would use the word quaestiō at the end of a sentence to signal that it was a query. That took up too much space. So in the Middle Ages, quaestiō got abridged to qo, with the q appearing above the o. Then, over time, natural refinements shaped that stacked q and o into the well-known squiggle and dot that we use today. It’s a fitting symbol for all the curious hunches of a difference-making quest. Each is a journey that’s oriented and navigated, from departure to destination, by the question mark itself.”

Sturt, David (2013-09-02). Great Work: How to Make a Difference People Love (Kindle Locations 728-733). McGraw-Hill Education. Kindle Edition.

Perhaps we need to ask more questions before we can find the “right” questions to ask to realign American foreign policy with American national interests. As President Obama’s initial half-baked “strategy” to defeat ISIL/ISIS/IS falters, the larger question, “why does American foreign policy seem to benefit a whole host of foreign countries, disparate interest groups and even our adversaries more than it benefits America?”, seems to be one such big picture question that might illuminate the larger puzzle. Finding the pieces to solve this puzzle might lead us toward a more coherent foreign policy spanning the globe, not just dealing with the ISIL/ISIS/IS quandary.

Back in September, President Obama announced his “strategy”, stating, “we will degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL”. Here we are in November and his “strategy” isn’t working. We (the American taxpayers) have invested somewhere between 4-6 trillion dollars, not to even count the cost in American lives lost in the fight to defeat al Qaeda and it’s affiliates. Along the way the strategy veered into nation-building, replete with trying to build western-style armies and police forces amongst people who have no understanding of western secular governance. All sorts of tangential programs blossomed from drug eradication programs in Afghanistan to the tune of 7.5 billion dollars yielding an increase in poppy production, yes, an increase to misappropriated or unaccounted for spending on private contractors, bribe money to buy locals, etc., etc., etc. We (our government and US Forces) tried to downplay that anti-American sentiment grew the longer we stayed and the more we tried to help. We overemphasized small short-term successes, while ignoring large long-term failures. And at the big picture level, we never pinned down what victory really was. We went from 8 years of hearing that we mustn’t leave safe havens for terrorists to even more feckless announcements that al Qaeda was defeated and that walking away from the fight and declaring victory is the same thing as really winning the fight.

To expect coherence in American foreign policy at this late date seems to be more wishful thinking than realistic, but let’s ask more questions. Supposing we actually defeated al Qaeda, ISIL/ISIS/IS, and all the other big Islamist terrorists, would the Islamist Ascendency come to a crashing halt? Would the power vacuums in the region be filled by more moderate factions? Are we viewing “victory” myopically by focusing on smaller parts of the Islamic world’s power struggles, without considering the larger battles between Shia and Sunni and between them and secular factions? Do we even really have a good grasp of the power structure of these factions and of the “hearts and minds” of the people whom we’re ostensibly trying to help? Is negotiating with Iran in America’s national interest and how does this impact our dealings with the Shia-aligned powers in Iraq or with our Sunni allies in the region? Does removing Assad really open the door for those elusive “Syrian moderates” to crawl out of the woodwork and end the brutal civil war or will it be a green light to the most determined zealots to fight harder to seize power? ISIL seems to be gaining allies (“Islamic State leader claims ‘caliphate’ has expanded in new audio message“), while John Kerry is mum about the size of our “coalition”, should we be concerned? And now the most basic question of all, “Is an American team, where the President of the United States does not listen to his own top generals on how to employ American military might, a larger national security threat than ISIL?”

Before we can figure out a strategy we need to define the strengths and weaknesses of the various leaders, the political alignments of the various, expanding number of factions, and the people (both at home and abroad). We need to define America’s national interests in the Muslim world and to do that requires asking the troublesome questions about that “religion of Peace”, with its many faces of jihad. And just maybe, we need to set our partisan blinders aside and take a good, hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves if after spending trillions of dollars on this “war on terror”, “American democratization project” or however you want to define the past decade we expect to defeat anyone with such a muddled, misguided, delusional foreign policy, while our enemy remains committed to the same clear strategic goals? Can an America that remains divided by rancorous partisan politics ever be successful at agreeing on “American national interests” or piecing together a unified, coherent foreign policy?

Often I sit here looking at my bookshelves as I think about what to write and this morning, prodded by the focus on questions most assuredly, my eyes kept returning to Samuel Huntington’s, “Who Are We?” sitting beneath “Discourses on Livy” in a stack of books on my children’s little rocking chair near my desk. Let’s hope the answer to all these questions isn’t the book underneath Huntington’s……… Colin Gray’s “Another Bloody Century”….
As a young child watching the news, I used to ask my mother why there’s so much fighting in the Mid-East and her answer made more sense than some of the most brilliant analysis by renowned foreign policy experts. She would sigh and say, “They haven’t moved past throwing stones yet.” She often followed that with little lectures on tolerance and turning the other cheek. One can hide behind secular academic blather, but perhaps hate is the driving force behind the Islamic Ascendancy and that is a question to ponder long and hard upon.