What is it good for?

It's not making us safer. 

The Russian president has already said that several countries are willing to give Iran a bomb. Or maybe  sell them one. I bet North Korea or Pakistan will be happy to sell a few.

By bombing Iran, we changed the target from Israel to us. Yeah, yeah, Iran plans to destroy us like they have for the past forty years. But now we have to bomb them based on intelligence provided by the Deep State that never saw a war they didn't want to start. Lindsey Graham is creaming his panties. John Bolton has a stiffie. 

President Trump was elected on the promise of no more endless wars. They are going to find another reason to bomb or send boots on the ground. We have to do it. Otherwise, the world will end. 

Just like with Saddam, Assad, and Gaddafi, and all the rest.

Trump got rolled by the Hebes

Was Little Phil Right?

I've had this in the back of my mind for a while.

Most people think Phil Sheridan, who hated Indians with a passion, said the only good one was a dead one. He didn't, of course, It was honed down into that familiar quote.

A lot of people felt that way, from the days when the Wild West was west of the Hudson River to the islands of the Pacific in WWII. Many had reason. And, yes, decimating the fighting men of one side helps the winners prevail all the more completely.

Many of the South's leading commanders (Stonewall, JEB, Van Dorn (granted, shot by a jealous husband), and Albert Sidney Johnston, etc.) and sizeable portions of its troops were killed in action. The best the unreconstructed Confederates could do was the Klan.

We know how the Commies obliterated anybody who could be a nuisance any chance they got, to the tune of 130 million dead. Hitler achieved the same with the Night of the Long Knives and other vehicles of civic enhancement. The French citoyens wiped out the nobility and the Good Ol' US of A didn't have much trouble with Loyalists because the American Revolution was also a very ruthless civil war at the end of which a great many Tories departed for more congenial outposts of royal Albion. Many returned, but any resistance was DOA.

So consider this point. We all know the enmity between the ever-shrinking (and it is) Left and real Americans continues to gain in viciousness. The Brooklyn shootings Troop mentioned are the latest example. A lot of people think we'll see a second (third, actually) civil war.

If so, will we have to decimate the Left unto the third and fourth generation or, as Andrew Jackson did with the Five Civilized Tribes, drive them from the United States?

I ask this because we all know the Lefties are in it for the long run. We've beaten them before and they've always regenerated. It took the Democrats 50 years to bounce back from the Civil War and another 20 before they were able to control of the government. What we call the Deep State is merely the way the Left used civil service. The Roosevelt Reds stayed for their 20 years in the bowels of the government and many got another Federal job for another 20 years. The old New Dealers became so entrenched, it took someone like Reagan, who was willing to wage war on them, to change things and the old Reds passed the torch to the hippie dippy types trained by more New Dealers, tenured in colleges all across the country.

And that's where we are today.

So, we'll play a new round of Dorothy Thompson's old parlor game, Who Goes Nazi?.

Can we live with these people or is it them or us, to the last man, woman, and child? They've always had it in the backs of their minds. What William Ayers dreamed 50 years ago is being proposed today under the rubric of Flu Manchu. They would if they could.

Where do you come down?

That day has passed....the band is no more....the few are none

The Neocons and the globalist are working overtime to promote a war with Russia. The pretext has already been set up with the nonsense about a spy being poisoned in England. Supposedly by the Russians. The British Prime Minister has expelled diplomats and rallied the child molesters of the EU to sanction Russia. She is trying to drag us into the conflict with the aid of the media and the opposition. Who dare the God Emperor to prove that he is not a Russian stooge. Despite everything he has already done. They will not be satisfied until there is a war.

"Wrestling With North Korea, Trump Finds Perilous Options"

Via Drudge:  North Korea’s threat on Thursday to test-fire ballistic missiles soon near the American territory of Guam deepened the challenge confronting the Trump administration: how to defang Pyongyang’s missile programs without risking all-out war.

President Trump has made clear that his goal is to deny North Korea the capability to field a long-range nuclear-tipped missile that could strike the United States.

And though the Pentagon still hopes for a diplomatic solution, highly classified military options are at the ready, last seriously debated when the Clinton administration pondered pre-emptive action to try to thwart North Korea’s nuclear program...

“In the event of a first strike against Kim, even a non-nuclear option, it is highly likely that Kim would retaliate at least conventionally against South Korea,” said James Stavridis, a retired four-star admiral who is now dean of Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. “This almost certainly would create an upward spiral of violence which would be extremely difficult to manage or to mitigate.”

(Link to more)

"McMaster: Kim Jong Un should not be sleeping easily at night"

Via Drudge:  McMaster made the remark in an interview Wednesday and emphasized that Kim has become increasingly isolated on the world stage.

McMaster made the remark in an interview Wednesday and emphasized that Kim has become increasingly isolated on the world stage.

"Because he has the whole world against him, right? He's isolated. He's isolated on this. Since 1953 the Korean peninsula has been in a state of armistice. The war never formally ended and there's been no aggression, no aggression from the United States, South Korea, any of our allies."

The national security adviser also said he isn't sure whether things would change in North Korea if the young dictator were taken out of power and argued his behavior means the future of the regime is "almost impossible to predict."

"Well, I'm not sure about that," McMaster said. "I don't think anyone has a very clear picture of the inner workings of that regime."

(Link to more)

Don't be a puppet.

Rabel said...

"Why do we need to protect the Koreans from Communism?"

Ratification advised by the Senate Jan. 26, 1954, and ratified by the President Feb. 5, 1954.

It's a formal treaty of mutual self defense between the USA and South Korea. You can argue for its termination after one year's notice as provided but as of now we are pledged to its fulfillment. I think you'd find yourself in a small minority, but go for it.

 Trooper York said...

Do you think we should still be party to this treaty Rabel? What do we get out of it? What part of our naked self interest does this satisfy? Is it to make us feel good? To make us be the "leader of the free world? To protect them from the commies? What is our vital interest in Korea? We don't have enough barbecue and Karaoke bars?

Why are thousands of our best young men and woman being held hostage to the whims of oriental despots that really have nothing to do with us?

Abrogate the treaty today and bring our boys and girls home now. Put them on the border and we wouldn't even have to build wall.

This is a discussion Rabel and I had on another thread about Korea. It seem that a lot of people are pushing for war in Korea. For us to take unilateral military action to take out this gook dictator even though he has nuclear weapons. Because. Because? Why are we in Korea? What is our national interest? To protect Japan and South Korea? Trade rivals and economies that undercut the American workers? To preserve our prestige? To show we have bigger dicks than the Chinamen. Look if you don't know that your dick is bigger than a Chinaman's a war is not going to prove it. So what is the reason? There is no reason. I hope and pray that President Trump is smart enough not to get into a war with a nuclear power over nothing.I fear that he is being influenced by the warmongers and the globalists who want a war. He got a lot of praise for bombing towelheads. More than just about anything else he has done so far. Is he going to do this to get the praise of the media and the establishment? I pray that he is smarter than that.

Paris reaction

Answering commenter Amartel at the end of the previous post, Obama: I'm Not Interested in "American Leadership or America Winning. 

[Instead] go on the offensive, shaming everyone who questions them, dithering over semantics and optics, and continuing merrily on doubling and tripling down on the same failed policies that got us to this point in the first place.

Two articles discuss similar views.

It's too late to save France by Rick Moran on PJ Media

The French you would expect to defend France have given up. They justify evil by entertaining the idea that French society has let down the terrorist by being insufficiently inclusive. They are frozen in doubt and cannot summon the courage or the energy to fight back. Similar to Hitler walking though France because the nation was similarly traumatized by WWI they lost the energy to acknowledge the threat straight on and protect themselves.

The piece is contradicted in the first  comment by the godfather of PJ Media. Simon believes the cite and the samples provided do not represent France, that the rest of the nation is not like that. 

Why the Paris Massacre Will Have Limited Impact on Danielpipes.org.

Pipes describes France as divided by the governed who tend to move right incrementally with each Islamic terror related incident and a ruling elite that moves left incrementally with each incident. The more right the people, the more left the leaders. So the citizens see such policies as increased immigration even as they grieve over loss and rage for concrete defensive action. That dynamic balances and so nothing happens. Pipes concludes, eventually things change through elections but weakened and decades too late.

We noticed that too. Comments here are rife with the same ideas.

There are a lot of things to look at all at once, chief among them our state of mind.

The collective psychological state can be characterized by schizophrenia on a national scale and on international scale such that disallows straightforward war with radical Islam by coalition and sustained to its defeat. France as a nation is psychologically schizophrenic and the United States is psychologically schizophrenic neither nation can be trusted as partner even among themselves in matters of sustained war. Both are unreliable partners for war because both are politically schizophrenic.

Addressing Methadras who follows Armatel in the previous post.

Not a single person is to be trusted in this very long thread of comments on Twitter to an MSNBC article about French Interior Minister saying directly to expect the "dissolution of mosques where hate is preached" The discussion is dragged into the weeds immediately in different directions. What about this, what about that, who decides what is hate, what about when that power is used against you? What about Christians? What about the crusades? Look at all the red-necks, there sure is a lot of hate. As a person who's served, as an atheist, as homosexual, as a person of color who has experienced... Within seconds all this and tons more of the same, these are not the people trusted to initiate, participate, cooperate, sustain war. One's other half is not trusted. One's twin is not trusted. Not one bit, and the feelings being mutual rule out sustained war to success.

Because of this, war cannot be straightforward. Damn, ALL dressed up to the nines and no place to go. It must be otherwise.

Expect mosques to be surveilled intensely without admitting it. Not so much proper services, rather, activities after services. The same with certain neighborhoods.  Electronic surveillance will penetrate even to game consoles. A lot of pin-prick arrests in the night. A lot of things will happen, speech laws will change.

Reddit: Video of Russian Naval and Helicopter Attacks on Syria

It suddenly occurs to me how approximately close the Russians are to Syria... compared to the USA.

Link to video

Link to video

Via Reddit

"Russia demands US to remove warplanes from Syria’s airspace"

"Russian warplanes have begun bombarding Syrian opposition targets in the war-torn nation's north, working on behalf of dictator Bashar al-Assad, according to a senior military official."

The official said airstrikes targeted fighters in the vicinity of Homs, located roughly 60 miles east of a Russian naval facility in Tartus, and were carried out by a "couple" of Russian bombers. The strikes hit targets in Homs and Hama, but there are no presence of ISIS in those areas, a senior U.S. defense official said. These planes are hitting areas where Free Syrian Army and other anti-Assad groups are located, the official said.

The development came after Pentagon officials brushed aside an official request from Russia to clear air space over northern Syria, where Moscow intends to conduct airstrikes against ISIS on behalf of Assad, according to sources who spoke to Fox News.

"It's me or it's him."

Link to video

War In Eastern Europe

It could happen this summer, says the author of  this article.

Of course, moving thousands of troops is a difficult thing to hide completely in this day and age, and yesterday Reuters broke the story that large numbers of Russian troops, armed with tanks and artillery, have been sighted near the Ukraine border, more or less opposite the strategic city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov. Worse, Russians have been seen removing unit insignias from their vehicles and uniforms, in emulation of last year’s “little green men” episodes in Crimea and Southeast Ukraine. Putin is either readying to launch a renewed offensive in Ukraine or he wants the world to think he’s about to. Deception, what Russians call maskirovka, is a well-honed art there, so it’s possible this is yet another saber-rattle. But we don’t know yet. Though I suspect we’ll find out soon enough.

Meanwhile, some additional US forces are being quietly deployed to Poland.  Article here.

Russia is trying to hide its involvement in the war in The Ukraine.  Typical of the Russian government, they say the war is between Ukrainian nationalists and Ukrainian separatists, and that it doesn't involve Russian soldiers.  And Russia has sent mobile crematoriums to the area to dispose of the bodies of dead Russian soldiers so that they aren't sent home, confirming a Russian presence in a war.    Article here.

Russian long-range bombers have been conducting flights in or near American airspace from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico.  Article here.  It's like they are trying to provoke a war by having one of their aircraft  shot down.

Keep your eyes on the Middle East, but don't lose sight of Eastern Europe, especially now that the US military has been pared down to such an extent that it lacks the resources to fight a war on two continents.  The time is right for an aggressive Vladimir Putin to assert Russian control over the old Soviet Bloc nations.

"US military pilots complain hands tied in ‘frustrating’ fight against ISIS"

Making the world safe for ISIS...

U.S. military pilots carrying out the air war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria are voicing growing discontent over what they say are heavy-handed rules of engagement hindering them from striking targets.

They blame a bureaucracy that does not allow for quick decision-making. One Navy F-18 pilot who has flown missions against ISIS voiced his frustration to Fox News, saying: "There were times I had groups of ISIS fighters in my sights, but couldn't get clearance to engage.”

He added, “They probably killed innocent people and spread evil because of my inability to kill them. It was frustrating." (read more)

Meanwhile, The Free Beacon reports Al Qaeda in Syria is "Tweeting Jihad to Over 200,000 Followers"

Though al Qaeda’s ongoing operations have taken a backseat to the exploits of IS, the group founded by Osama bin Laden is thriving on Twitter, according to MEMRI.

“It should be noted that as Twitter’s removal of accounts on its platform linked to the Islamic State (ISIS) has gotten a lot of attention, accounts belonging to many other Designated Terrorist Organizations, notably to Jabhat Al-Nusra (JN), Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria that was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in December 2012, have not received any attention, and its many accounts, which have a total of over 200,000 followers, are thriving,” MEMRI wrote in a recent report.

“This is another reminder of Twitter’s failure to effectively address this issue and its lack of a true strategy for doing so,” the group concluded.

"U.S. plans large-scale offensive..."

To take Mosul, Iraq, from Islamic State militants. Save the date?

The U.S. is planning to join a large-scale air and ground coalition offensive to free Mosul,

Iraq, from the clutches of Islamic State militants in coming weeks, but analysts fear the effort will lack the resources to succeed — most notably U.S. boots on the ground.

Pentagon officials say the effort to reclaim Mosul is likely to launch the spring, soon after Mr. Carter has been brought up to speed on the coalition’s strategy and operational needs.

This sounds more like the military is asking ISIS to leave Mosul, than anything else.

"White House exempts Syria airstrikes from tight standards on civilian deaths"

"The White House has acknowledged for the first time that strict standards President Obama imposed last year to prevent civilian deaths from U.S. drone strikes will not apply to U.S. military operations in Syria and Iraq."

A White House statement to Yahoo News confirming the looser policy came in response to questions about reports that as many as a dozen civilians, including women and young children, were killed when a Tomahawk missile struck the village of Kafr Daryan in Syria's Idlib province on the morning of Sept. 23.

“They were carrying bodies out of the rubble. … I saw seven or eight ambulances coming out of there,” said Abu Abdo Salabman, a political member of one of the Free Syria Army factions, who attended the briefing for Foreign Affairs Committee members and staff. “We believe this was a big mistake.”

Obama was for protecting civilians until he was against it.

Rosie O'Donnell: Penalizing Muslim NFL Player 'Propels Us to War'

"According to View co-host and 9/11 truther Rosie O'Donnell, a Muslim NFL player being penalized for praying after a touchdown is the kind of thing that "propels us to war." Talking to the other women of the show about Kansas City Chiefs safety Husain Abdullah, Whoopi Goldberg wondered if Americans are "feeding into Muslim fear."

"Yes. I think as a nation we are. I think that, you know, it propels us to war. You have to rally the country in order to bomb a country that did nothing to you and you need to rally them and so that's what I think that was."

She added, "Anyone is allowed to represent their joy in whatever way possible for two minutes on a football field and I think it's anti-Muslim bias."

"U.K. votes to approve air strikes as more allies join Islamic State fight"

"The coalition of nations participating in military action against Islamic State continues to grow – but so do worries about whether the campaign of air strikes has any hope of succeeding."

"Britain became the latest country to commit military resources to the fight, as its Parliament voted overwhelmingly on Friday to authorize air strikes against Islamic State targets inside Iraq. Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons before the vote that the extremist group presented a genuine threat to the United Kingdom, and warned the fight against the self-declared caliphate would take “years” to win."




As to the efficacy of an air campaign alone strategy...

I guess I'm just going to have to trust that Obama and the Progressives know what they're doing here killing anything that moves.
— Dennis Miller Show (@DennisDMZ) September 25, 2014

Obama appears to be making up the ISIS strategy on the fly.

From the NYT Paths to War, Then and Now, Haunt Obama ...

Asked by one of the columnists what he would do if his strategy did not work and he had to escalate further, Mr. Obama rejected the premise. “I’m not going to anticipate failure at this point,” he said.

 The president also plays what I would describe as ISIS pundit.

If he had been “an adviser to ISIS,” Mr. Obama added, he would not have killed the hostages but released them and pinned notes on their chests saying, “Stay out of here; this is none of your business.” Such a move, he speculated, might have undercut support for military intervention. (read the whole thing)

What a strange thing to say by a person on whose shoulders rest the awesome responsibility of sending soldiers into harms way. If you are a soldier somewhere halfway around the world, and you read something like that, said by your commander in chief, what are you supposed to think?

"Kiev on Edge After Russia OKs Putin's Military Intervention Plan"

"Kiev was on edge Saturday after Russian parliament’s upper house unanimously approved President Vladimir Putin’s request for a military intervention in Ukraine, according to a Kremlin statement."

The approval came within two hours of Putin appealing to parliament, saying the move is needed to protect ethnic Russians and the personnel of a Russian military base in Ukraine's strategic region of Crimea, a peninsula the size of Massachusetts where three out of four people speak Russian.

However, the vote does not specify that Russian troops are authorized to enter Crimea; instead, it states Russia's military force can enter "Ukraine," giving themselves a legal cloak to target more than Crimea.

NBC

“I Saw a Scene of Utter Cruelty”

"All wars are vicious, but the civil war in Syria seems every day to set new standards for brutality. As the fighting rages in its third year, increasing numbers of atrocities are committed by soldiers and fighters from forces loyal to the regime of President Bashar Assad, as well as armed rebels and Islamic militants from the numerous, loosely aligned groups opposing Assad."

The violence is frequently sectarian in nature, with fighters claiming they act in defense of their faith, be it Sunni, Alawite, Shiite or any of the other sects that contribute to Syria’s religious landscape.

The perpetrators of atrocities themselves often use digital cameras or smartphones to photograph or film their acts of torture and murder, uploading the images to the Internet. These images and videos are used for propaganda, and their authenticity is often impossible to verify. It is very rare that a group of fighters from either side gives a professional photojournalist from a country outside Syria full and unfettered access to chronicle an atrocity as it unfolds.

Although this question may be impossible to answer with absolute certainty, I'm going to ask anyway. Is it possible that the increased worlds attention on Syria is causing more people to die?
And, consequently, what should we, the citizens of the United States be doing to stop it?

What if al-Assad had a son that looked like Trayvon?

In the previous thread, I noticed many of you didn't offer arguments in the way of help to our president. Who, many say has box himself into a corner and it now appears that our adversaries, Russia and China are poised to take advantage of his apparent ineptitude. Despite how he got where he finds himself, however, I want to remind you, Obama still our president.

Now, I know what you might think or say.
Lem, how can you ask us to help Obama when we are squarely opposed to him politically?

This is what I ask. Lets put aside our political differences and come together in the spirit of lending, giving our president some of our wisdom, if not experience, working/managing ourselves out of tight corners.

Are there any experts here in Syrian citizenship by way of Hawaii?

You remember how clear headed and resolute the president appeared, at this press conference when he said...

"You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," Obama said. "All of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves."

Can anything be more serious than launching our country into yet another war?

"Obviously, this is a tragedy. I can only imagine what these parents are going through," Obama said. "All of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how something like this has happened."

If al-Assad had a son that looked like Trayvon, maybe our president would reconsider going after the father of that son with missiles and bombs. I'm just thinking aloud here, just like secretary Kerry, who btw, also served in Vietnam.

Let's go back and see where Obama has performed up to his presidential prerogatives and see if a concrete connection can be made, where it would help our president find his way out the "muddle" he put himself in. Lets help president Obama find "his own words".