Day: October 31, 2014

Chuq’s Daily Musical Interlude

Happy Halloween!

Friday afternoon and the brain has so full of stuff that it needs a break…..a hard break…..

Please my readers let me know if this series on music is worth the effort……I like the tunes but if no one else does then I will put it on the back burner…….thanx for your help………

You know that certain tunes bring a flood of memories……well this one is just such a tune….Jefferson Airplane.

But first a trivia question….without Google…….. (like that will happen)………. what is a Jefferson Airplane?

 

ISIS Coalition Situation Report (SITREP) #29

Good day….This will be the last briefing for the week unless a situation requires immediate update.

The Kurds have entered Kobane from Turkey to help defend the town from the extremists……no reports on action yet…..

Item 1–The battle against ISIS has become a battle of propaganda………and so far the US is struggling to keep up with the militants.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has a cruelly effective propaganda machine, said retired Marine Gen. John Allen, who is serving as President Barack Obama’s special envoy for the international fight. The U.S. and its allies can’t make major progress until they pursue an information campaign just as aggressively as the military one, Allen told a conference this week in Kuwait.

“I strongly encourage all of us, the participants, to set forth tangible work plans that will directly and rapidly counter Da’esh’s propaganda in the cyberspace and in the media,” Allen said. “Our responses must be agile. They must be flexible. And they must be tailored to quickly evolving events on the battlefield, and in the social and political spheres where Da’esh challenges all of us as coalition members.”

The Coalition has to work within rules….ISIS does not……and that explains the successes they, ISIS, is having with their propaganda.

Item 2–It seems that I am not the only one that questions this plan to fight ISIS…….

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel issued a memo to National Security Adviser Susan Rice which was deeply critical of the administration’s military strategy in the ongoing ISIS war in Syria, saying the plan was “in danger of unraveling.”

The memo, described by officials familiar with it, centered on the lack of an endgame strategy as well as the inability of the administration to clarify its intentions toward the Assad government.

Hagel warned the fighting in Syria could go on for years without any clear end, and that Syrian President Bashar Assad was deriving benefits from the US campaign.

I like Hagel…to be honest we were both in the Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta South Vietnam…….he has a grasp of this for he was a NCO not some officer  run was on the ground doing what all grunts do….fight.

Item 3–It looks like the Joint Chiefs learned little from Vietnam……

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey is urging the Obama Administration to agree to send the “military advisers” on the ground in Iraq to the front line in the Anbar Province, where they’d almost certainly end up in direct combat with ISIS.

Gen. Dempsey urged the US to make the deployment into “advise and assist missions” into Anbar Province, where ISIS controls the vast majority of territory, conditional on the Iraqi government arming Sunni tribes.

In case anyone is unclear….this is how the Vietnam nightmare began……are we ready for another?

Item 4–US airstrikes are not as successful as once reported……..

The invention of “Khorasan” as a faction in Syria was meant to disguise that the US attacks in Syria were targeting not just ISIS, but also Jabhat al-Nusra, the local al-Qaeda affiliate whose members were attacked under the guise of targeting Khorasan.

The attacks were unpopular among the “moderate” rebels the US is always talking up, who noted Nusra is a close ally of theirs. Or at least, they were a close ally.

These airstrikes seem to be driving wedges instead of stopping ISIS….this could get sticky….

Item 5–The leaders speak……

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey gave mixed reviews Thursday to the progress made by U.S. and Iraq forces in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The top U.S. military officials said the U.S. and Iraqis have suffered setbacks in efforts to protect Sunni tribes in Iraq and form a “moderate” opposition force in Syria.

“We are constantly assessing and reassessing and adapting” on a strategy to defeat ISIS that Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, has said will take three to four years, Hagel said at a Pentagon briefing with Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Hagel said that the “complicated” and evolving strategy depended on holding together a fractious coalition of Middle Eastern countries committed to the main goal of rooting out ISIS.

There is the problem……always playing catch-up….that is NOT a winning strategy…..this war will last for 50 years if all we do is adjust to what ISIS is doing…..if we cannot get ahead of them then all is a waste.

That concludes today’s briefing…..next briefing will be Monday.

Thanx for your time and attention.

Turn The Page!

Always With Mixed Emotions

Opinion from the desk of the Editor:

In a matter of days….all the polls will be answered……

I have pretty silent on the whole 2014 mid-term thing….for one I think that Americans will show their ignorance and vote for the worst candidate they can find.

There are so many issues that I have mixed emotions about…..like gun control, SCOTUS rulings and elections.  My most confusing is my thoughts on the 2014 and 2016 elections…maybe I need to explain a little before I go on…….

From an early age I have been a radical….my radicalization came from my grandfather who work in the labor movement back in the early 100’s and he fought with the International brigades in Spain during the civil war of the 1930’s.  He pretty much made me read the classics and some of the radicals of the day…….so yes I am one of those radicals.

I have watched Americans deal with this political system for many decades and have seen them support reform over change…..change is something that Americans seem unwilling to embrace…..they had rather reform the crippled system they have looking for the right balance that will free them from the crap the system puts them through.  So far they have done nothing but make matters WORSE.

I have worked from the “Left” and I mean the Left….there is nothing leaning about a liberal….to connect liberals to the true Left is moronic or maybe just a serious lack of political knowledge.

We can pretend that liberal or conservative policies are best for the nation….but in reality the only people they benefit are the wealthy….the population is a necessary irritant that they must endure to accumulate more wealth…..

For decades I have tried to open the eyes of the voter and tried to explain the issues in simplistic terms, those that everyone can understand…..but I was unsuccessful for politicians have learned to dumb down every issue into a slogan that can be readily remembered.

Enough of my explanation on to my mixed emotions……..I would like to believe now that I am older that our politicians truly have the people in mind when they run for office……I have deluded myself……….

My mixed emotions about the 2014 and 2016 elections are….I want to believe that when a politician is worried about the disappearance of the middle class he/she is being honest…..but time in Washington proves me wrong every time……..

I would like to see the Tea Party “patriots” and I use the term humorously win their respective elections in both Houses….this will give them a ruling majority and that is where the country needs to be….why?  It would be the best boost to the Left in decades……their style of government will alienate everyone but the rich…….poor people will have to suffer but in the end a better world could be possible……that is if Americans get beyond their typical mindset of settling for what is being offered…..so much more is possible…..but they have to want more and not the crumbs that the system now gives them.  Americans have been settling for crumbs for decades……they know it but are afraid to make the changes needed.

The moronic Right….they spend all their time and effort on made up “scandals”……like some obscure little rancher that is freeloading off the system…..and yet the country is on a edge of disaster….they give d/bags like Issa power to do nothing but chase ghosts and waste money………….these types are hollow shells of arrogance and egotism…….qualities that are NOT conducive for a healthy country…….

The Left will need a galvanizing moment and a sweep by Tea Party types will be that moment……and then a whole new debate will begin…….sorry, but the American people will have to suffer, a vote for the TP is the first step in that suffering, before it can heal and move on………there are solutions to these problems but unfortunately they cannot be found within the TP movement………..

How far are you willing to go?

Turn The Page!

Millennials: Vote For Destruction?

A sigh of relief will go out when this election cycle is finished….it has been NOTHING useful said by any candidate for either side…..we have had enough negativity to last a life time…….we have had very little said as to how the country will be repaired if elected…….the only people that are getting anything out of this election are the pollsters, they are getting rich and the consumer is getting confused.  Perfect analysis of the American electoral system.

This election will be forever a joke without a punch line.

Both parties are trying desperately working to get millennials to the polls…..but what can we expect from the X-Box bunch it they do vote?

Republicans might find support in an unusual place in next week’s election: among millennials. A new poll by Harvard’s Institute of Politics shows that 18- to 29-year-olds who will likely vote on Tuesday prefer a GOP-run Congress. The margin is small, with 51% favoring the GOP and 47% favoring Democrats, but it’s a noticeable shift from a poll just ahead of the 2010 midterms. In that one, those who wanted Democratic control were up 55-43.

That’s a “stunning turnaround,” writes Ron Fournier at the National Journal, but he adds that Republicans shouldn’t celebrate too much. Generally speaking, millennials don’t like Republicans, and “the long-view IOP findings suggest that neither party is poised to win the largest generation in US history—a pragmatic, demanding, relatively nonideological electorate raised in an age of terrorism, war, and government dysfunction.” In short, then, consider the youth vote “up for grabs,” says the Harvard group’s director of polling in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

If this happens it will be the big political disaster since Gary Hart…….this country will start a downhill slide that can only help people that want real change…..and it could get very messy……but I will explain that in post to come……

Any thoughts?

Make America Safer: Shut Down the Department of Homeland Security – Reason.com

Since 9/11 Americans have been concerned with security….to the point that we are allowing a massive invasion of our privacy because we are told it will make us safer….the is a point of contention……

I read a good piece the other day about this very issue…….

 

Make America Safer: Shut Down the Department of Homeland Security – Reason.com.

US charities fund Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program | EUTimes.net

You know the crap that has been spread about Muslim charities that are funding extremism……well guess what?

Israel got help from US charities to fund their nuke program…..a program they have yet to admit to having……

We need to work on getting this info out there….and I want to know who these d/bags were so action can be taken to hold them criminally responsible.

 

US charities fund Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program | EUTimes.net.