Category Archives: Politics

US begins airstrikes against Islamic State in Tikrit, supports Shiite militias | The Long War Journal

US begins airstrikes against Islamic State in Tikrit, supports Shiite militias | The Long War Journal.

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More lamentations about Messages of mhere

“Evil report: When an individual maliciously injures, damages or discredits another’s reputation or character through the use of words or attitude.”

Sedler, Dr. Michael D. (2013-07-01). Stopping Words That Hurt: Positive Words in a World Gone Negative (p. 16). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

I listened to the entire 22:31 minutes of Monica Lewinsky’s TED talk (here) and several things struck me – first is she speaks with humility, grace and honesty.  Lewinsky defines her purpose of publicly speaking about her past as an attempt to change the culture of “cyberbullying” and the brutal invasion of privacy that modern technology has facilitated.

Lewinsky chronicles the evolution of incivility, invasion of personal privacy and many other horrible offshoots of boorish and cruel behavior fostered online.  Watching Lewinsky talk, it’s obvious she’s full of wit and charm, plus it’s obvious she’s smart too.  Way back when, during this impeachment scandal, I recall writing a comment online about Lewinsky too.  I remember some detailed description about her shopping for a gift, trying to find the right book, for Bill Clinton. I wrote that she was in love, but some much darker emotions drive Hillary Rodham Clinton.  She is consumed with her quest for power.

A large part of Lewinsky’s public shaming, as she refers to it, was not just because of the internet.  The Clinton political machine, driven by one, Hillary Rodham Clinton, fed stories to the media to trash Lewinsky as some psycho and they were quick to utilize the information superhighway to spread their lies.  The man she opens this talk discussing as “falling in love with my boss”, well, he threw her under the bus to save his political career and he let his wife handle the damage control.

The need for a cultural change hits us in the face almost daily with story after story of young people using the internet and cellphones to engage in everything from “cyberbullying” to sexual exhibitionist behavior, filming acts of violence (brawling being the least of it) to post online, or in cases like Tyler Clementi, whom Lewinsky mentions.  Clementi, a young gay college student, whose roommate used a hidden webcam in their dorm room to videotape Clementi in an intimate act, then posted the video online to share with other students stands as one of the cruelest personal acts of “cyberbullying”.  Clementi, upon finding out about this gross invasion of his privacy, committed suicide.  Lewinsky posits the question whether people can be shamed and humiliated to death and the answer is yes.  Lewinsky speaks about how her mother sat by her side, day after day, in the wake of the 1998 impeachment scandal, fearful for her life.

People, in both their private and public lives, have found ways to use the internet and modern electronic technology to achieve real-time connections, where very quickly, with little time given to reflection and thought, they pour out their personal business, they run with spreading stories that are complete lies, with no concerns about the veracity of the information they pass along.

The Clementi tragedy highlights the callous, cruelty of some college students, but Lewinsky skipped over another huge change in our cultural landscape wrought by the information superhighway – our political elites and their moneyed supporters and the press have joined in the reckless, hit and run political attacks, where Lewinsky serves as a prime example of the roadkill left behind.  While the past 17 years have been a struggle for Lewinsky to even find a job, the queen of the Clinton hit squad sits poised to run for President of the United States.  The use of the internet to sway political opinion has evolved  to the point where the current President of the United States, a man who lies more than the Clintons, has his administration writing “narratives”, replete with gross fabrications and distortions, to sell his policies to the American people.

Now, in light of all the things the public has come to know recently about Hillary’s private email server in her home and questions about her off the records intelligence-gathering via Sid Blumenthal, let me once again state that my story related in Messages of mhere (tabbed at the top of my home page) is the TRUTH. Is the idea that she sent some of her minions out to investigate an annoying conservative poster, whose comments were being borrowed by some right-wing pundits, so far-fetched as the details of her private communications network run from her home emerge?  Alas, mhere didn’t belong to any “vast, right-wing conspiracy”, then or now.  In whatever user id, I write under, mhere, libertybelle, or susanholly – I remain fiercely independent., with no political connections – a private American citizen.

I offered the real-life identities of every person mentioned to several reporters, as I stated a while back – no takers.  Oh, the things I wrote about way back then on the excite message boards – I mocked the Clinton spinmeisters (professional LIARS), who invaded those message boards to spin the story.  I pointed out the idiocy of their LIES.  And in mhere fashion – I made sure that I had the last word in each debate.

Yes, alas, my story sounds so far-fetched and after all, while she gets feted and fawned over the more she lies, I am the person who was locked up in a mental facility for 18 days, unable to get even my own family to listen to me.  Yes, my rights were violated repeatedly, and despite being able to shower, dress, talk coherently, someone(s) tried to have me permanently committed to a state mental hospital – something you’d expect in a communist country.  All these records exist, the hearing that freed me – I was not ever advised of my rights or of the hearing.  I had to throw a fit to even get legal representation.  I want to expose every last person who aided in attacking me and helped spread the lies about me.  Why?  Because I believe that woman, the “co-President”,  used an Army commander to attack an enlisted family based on LIES.  She corrupted the chain of command and I will continue to try and expose why she is unfit to ever be commander-in-chief of the US Armed Forces, bequeathed to us by General George Washington.  I don’t even have a speeding ticket.  I’ve never owned a gun or belonged to any militia or “vast right-wing conspiracy”.  I was a homemaker, by choice, with no political connections whatsoever.

On this BookBub thing online, you can get a daily email of book deals and along with that Amish Peace book I mentioned recently, I bought another book called, “Stopping Words That Hurt:  Positive Words In a World Gone Negative”, by Dr. Michael D. Sedler.  The book is written from a Christian perspective, rich with Biblical stories about the sin of spreading evil through lies, gossip, and what the author in general refers to as “evil reporting”.  Well, having been on the receiving end of  some potent “evil reporting”, hopefully someday I can publicly expose the source.

Sedler, identifies 7 types of “evil reporters” we may encounter: backbiters, busybodies, complainers, murmurers, slanderers, talebearers, and whisperers. He states identification as a powerful tool to unite people around an “evil report”:

“Identification: Emotionally, intellectually, physically or spiritually connecting with another individual.”

Sedler, Dr. Michael D. (2013-07-01). Stopping Words That Hurt: Positive Words in a World Gone Negative (p. 117). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Our partisan political factions feverishly work to gain support (identification) through spreading “evil reports”, with little regard for the TRUTH.  Sedler uses the divisiveness of Vietnam to explain how politics can divide not only the country, but create divides within families gathered at the dinner table.  America today is no less divided than it was during the Vietnam era, as evidenced by our polarized and paralyzed federal government.   Lewinsky carefully sidestepped delving into the political corruption within our two main political parties and she has set a noble purpose for her public speaking.  At some point, though, America will need to face up to the corruption attacking the very roots of our government – a breakdown and disregard for the rule of law by those entrusted to protect and defend The Constitution of the United States.

“Let us erect a standard to which the wise and honest may repair.”

– George Washington

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A city-by-city Iraqi mirage

This morning JK sent a link to an article written by Craig Whiteside at War On The Rocks, “Mosul: A Bridge Too Far?”.  This article presents an excellent background history of the factions and dispels the mythological sudden appearance of IS/ISIL/ISIS with a very detailed chronology of how radical Islamist elements aligned in the region surrounding Mosul had local support going back much further than last year when ISIL broke into the western media’s consciousness.  Whiteside states:

“The narrative that Mosul was invaded from Syria by a small number of militants last summer who managed to drive out a corrupt security force supports the idea the ISIL has shallow roots in the area and can be pushed out with moderate effort. As I argued here at War on the Rocks last December, that narrative only tells half of a story. Mosul’s fall last year was less telling as an indicator of the collapse of an occupational army than a measure of ISIL’s true and longstanding strength in the area. It was a tipping point and a shift that better explains why thousands fled from mere hundreds of insurgents. ISIL has had a strong presence in Ninewa (Mosul’s province) ever since Fallujah’s clearance in late 2004 left Mosul as the unofficial capital of ISIL.”

Whiteside’s phrasing using “the narrative” descriptive as more magical myth than detailed, fact-based chronology explains much of the problem with our understanding of IS/ISIL/ISIS and the political lay of the land among Iraq’s many tribes and factions.  The city-by-city strategic plan of defeating the Islamic State seems poorly thought out and a very costly endeavor in not only materiel, but also in lives.  Our press does a terrible job at asking questions and the laziness at actually digging for answers leads to these lapses in understanding  not only  foreign affairs, but also domestic affairs too.  We live awash in reports, experts, and intelligence. Yet, it seems our intelligence agencies don’t communicate and they definitely don’t collate the information available, then carefully assess their working theories or analyses to incorporate the new information.  So, we have these Mike Brown gentle giant myths and this ISIL magically appearing type understanding of the situations.

I’m adverse to escalating military intervention in Iraq (or anywhere in the ME) until there is a complete rethinking of our big picture foreign policy objectives in the region, a careful analysis of the situations on the ground in the various countries (especially the collapsing and failed states).  Then, the U.S. should carry out intense, serious diplomatic discussions with the players in that region and beyond, to include sitting down and talking to Putin and the Chinese about the ME chaos.  This pushing to make retaking Iraqi cities, the metric by which  “defeating ISIS” is judged, is totally idiotic!

That massive hyping by politicians and the press on the battle for Kobani set the stage for this myopic strategy.  By the time Kobani was “won”, what the hell did it matter – the “city” was mostly abandoned, demolished and a pile of rubble.  It made me think of that Vietnam era quote: “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”, Peter Arnett reported as a quote from an unnamed U.S. officer.  Sun Tzu, my favorite military strategy book, mentions both avoiding battles in cities and also avoiding so much destruction:

“1. Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.”

The War On The Rocks article includes informative links worth reading, which explain the strategic issues more clearly.  One link, “Stop Looking For The Center Of Gravity”, by Lawrence Freedman, highlights a serious problem in American military strategic planning, where we look for points to attack (center of gravity) and deliver a blow that will topple the enemy.  What we miss in this way of approaching our strategic planning is the most basic big picture strategy, which Freedman explains:

“So the wrong question to ask at the start of a campaign is “What is the enemy’s center of gravity?” The term should henceforth be banned. What should be put in its place? My suggestion may appear anticlimactic and banal. I would pose a simpler, more straightforward question: “What is the position you wish to reach?””

Fighting the Islamic State in cities, where the civilians are forced to flee, the city is reduced to rubble and the combatants, as in Kobani, are two brutal terrorist entities, while western reporters watch and cheer the Kurdish PKK liberators left me wondering what they were cheering about.  The alarming refugee numbers in Syria, Iraq and in many other Islamist battleground locations add up to failed states and ruined lives.  Too often men get so entrenched in fighting and winning that they lose sight of the bigger picture of “at what cost to the people who live there?”  That is an important question that our leaders need to consider.  Yes, defeating IS/ISIL/ISIS is important, but that band of loons is just one component to this whole big Islamic Ascendency civilizational crisis.  Without a big picture understanding and then a comprehensive strategy to address the larger Islamic civilizational crisis, we are wasting lives, money, and time chasing windmills. 

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MONICA CROWLEY: Was Hillary Clinton running her own rogue intel operation? – Washington Times

MONICA CROWLEY: Was Hillary Clinton running her own rogue intel operation? – Washington Times.

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GMD’s latest pearl of wisdom: “The Faces of Foreign Policy Failure”

Personality is seldom thought to be relevant to national security analysis. Yet in the end, intelligence, policy, and failures are made by men — and the occasional woman. We are fond of blaming history, institutions, processes, or systems for social….

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Bill Whittle: The Criminal Arrogance of Hillary Clinton | Truth Revolt

Bill Whittle: The Criminal Arrogance of Hillary Clinton | Truth Revolt.

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GMD breaks down the Islamic threat (a must read)

Policy is a worldview. Intelligence is the real world, a wilderness of untidy facts that may or may not influence policy. When Intelligence fails to provide a true and defensible estimate, a clear picture of threat, policy becomes a rat’s nest ….

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How likely is it that all of Hillary Clinton’s emails were free of classified material?

How likely is it that all of Hillary Clinton’s emails were free of classified material? Not very. Though it’s not widely known, the State Department has a Bureau of Intelligence and Research that is as much a part of the intelligence comm….

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A pretty solid performance of “I am the victim……again!”

Here’s my bullet point analysis of Hillary’s email meeting with reporters about her secret email account and private server in her home:

  1. I am the champion of women everywhere – don’t forget that!
  2.  Let me set the “vast, right-wing conspiracy” victim card on the table by sternly mentioning the GOP letter to Iran.
  3. I am innocent.  A secret email server in my home was simply done for a matter of personal convenience, harmless, no intent to hide anything  – let me repeat, nothing to hide.
  4. “I did not break any laws” and *deep sighs* to emphasize this is just another right-wing witch hunt.

You must give her kudos for her ability to  brazenly repeat bold-faced lies and stick to her script. She has perfected those deep sighs to play the victim so well.

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Maureen Dowd on the the Clintons

“With the Clintons, Only the Shadow Knows”, Maureen  Dowd weighs in on the Hillary email scandal.

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