Day: April 24, 2017

Closing Thought–24Apr17

Celebration update:  For all those redneck toads out there….today is Confederate Memorial Day…..

“Unwanted Politician Removal”

One way of ridding ourselves of a politician that is no longer “lovable” is resignation…..another way is through the process of impeachment…..this one was tried with Bubba Clinton and his blowjob scandal…..and we all remember the resignation of Nixon, right?

Well it seems that all this mash up with Pres. Trump over his business dealing, his taxes, his people and probably his bathroom tissue and the Dems are licking their chops….

A new introduction in Congress could make it easier to rid ourselves of an unwanted person…..

A House Democrat has introduced legislation to enhance the Constitution’s presidential removal procedures in response to concerns about President Trump’s behavior.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) filed the bill during the House’s two-week April recess to empower former presidents and vice presidents of both parties, in coordination with the sitting vice president, to determine if a president is fit for office.

“It is hard to imagine a better group to work with the vice president to examine whether the president is able to discharge the duties of the office. When there are questions about the president’s ability to fulfill his or her constitutional responsibilities, it is in the country’s best interest to have a mechanism in place that works effectively,” Blumenauer said in a statement.

Source: House Democrat introduces bill to amend presidential removal procedures | TheHill

Trump supporters….not to worry…the Congress is a dysfunctional mess so this will probably go no where…

If that does not interest you…then how about some music….in my opinion it is Johnny Rivers best album…….

TTFN……will see you guys tomorrow….chuq

STOP! Treating War As Entertainment

From time to time I will post a petition that I think is worth my readers attention and this is one of those petitions…..

Tell traditional corporate media outlets: Stop glorifying war

“I am guided by the beauty of our weapons.”

That is the Leonard Cohen quote that MSNBC’s Brian Williams used last week to wax poetic about Donald Trump’s decision to illegally drop dozens of Tomahawk missiles on Syria.1 He described the “beautiful pictures of fearsome armaments” that were emerging of the strike with reverence and awe, demonstrating the horrifying and dangerous attitude that traditional corporate media outlets too-often take when reporting on war.2

War is not beautiful. Military action should be taken as a last resort and recognized for the sacrifice and loss that comes with it. It is a problem when the people and institutions tasked with keeping the general public informed of our actions in the world hide behind flowery language and lies to keep from having to report on the reality of war.

Source: Tell traditional corporate media outlets: Stop glorifying war | CREDO Action

Please consider the possibility of adding your name to those that oppose war…..especially when it seen as entertainment..

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Libya: What To Do?

Libya has been in the news, not so much in the US but the rest of the world is watching, at every turn the news is that ISIS is taking it in the butt…..however the divisions among the different factions is still a kettle at boiling point.

But let’s say the shooting is over and Libya becomes a calm region….but what would be the government that would protect this calm?

Well there is the typical answer when dealing with the Arab world….a federal government.

I say typical because it has been proposed for two other countries at war….Iraq and Syria……(check out the proposals)

Source: How About a Federalized Iraq? – In Saner Thought

Source: The Partition Of Syria – In Saner Thought

And now there is talk of a partitioning of Libya…..

History repeats itself, it is often said. The strife facing modern-day Libya—strife largely born of and fueled by internal, sometimes tribal divisions—is only the latest iteration in a longstanding pattern. As the Italians discovered during their colonization of Libya, and as ISIS discovered when it conquered Sirte, and as the international community has recently discovered in a multitude of ways, Libya is a deeply divided country. Without a real approach to that reality—including perhaps creating a confederal model for Libya—Libyans themselves will continue to be their own worst enemies.

Source: A house divided: Why partitioning Libya might be the only way to save it | Brookings Institution

This idea was floated by an adviser of Trump…one Gorka….Politico covered his proposal written on a napkin…..

Dear Dr. Gorka,

So I hear you’re interested in being Donald Trump’s envoy to Libya. You even sketched a plan on a napkin to partition the country. The plan would divide Libya into three provinces that date back to the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century, and thereby solve Libya’s current crisis. If it were only that simple.

Source: So You Want to Partition Libya … – POLITICO Magazine

Some, like myself, do know think that partitioning is the answer….it is not a good idea for Iraq nor Syria….and Libya fits into that disapproval nicely…..

In their final communique at the end of their two-day meeting in Italy on April 10, the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven yet again expressed their unequivocal support of the Libyan political agreement and its transitional government headed by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, while calling on all armed groups in the Libyan capital to “desist from actions that would exacerbate internal division and fuel further conflict.”

What is worth noting in the statement on Libya is the clear expression of support to the country’s territorial integrity and unity, which clearly rejects any idea of a possible breakup of the country as a way of stabilizing it, since its quarreling factions have failed to accept any form of a political solution. The statement read, “We reaffirm our commitment to preserving the sovereignty, integrity and unity of Libya.”
Libya will have its problems after the hostilities….but breaking the country up is NOT the best answer.

Where Have All The Protesters Gone?

As a child of the 60’s and after my stint in Vietnam I came home and started protesting a war I did not agree with…..I have fond memories of those protests and even some of the arrests.

The US has been at war for 25 years….and there has been very little antiwar protests…..only small voices in the wilderness like mine.

And now that we have a whole White House flexing its muscles around the world and even some threats of using nukes (mostly from idiots that have no idea what they are talking about) I would think that there would be more people rising up and joining in protests….I would be mistaken.

Why?  Because of this……

A series of accelerating and interlocking security crises, from the Middle East and southwest Asia to North Korea, makes the first months of 2017 an especially perilous time. Increasing the dangers is the way that domestic politics in the United States are coming to shape the Trump’s administration’s global military adventurism.

To understand what is happening, look back a few months. Trump’s electoral success in November was partly owed to his stance as defender of the ordinary American facing an entrenched Washington establishment. This elite, he proclaimed, was out of touch with and ignorant of the everyday problems of post-industrial and rural middle America.

Source: Trump’s Wars: More to Come | By Paul Rogers | Common Dreams

All does not look promising….but I could be mistaken (probably not)…..

In recent weeks, the people of the world have been treated to yet another display of the kind of nuclear insanity that has broken out periodically ever since 1945 and the dawn of the nuclear era.

On April 11, Donald Trump, irked by North Korea’s continued tests of nuclear weapons and missiles, tweeted that “North Korea is looking for trouble.” If China does not “help,” then “we will solve the problem without them.” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un responded by announcing that, in the event of a U.S. military attack, his country would not scruple at launching a nuclear strike at U.S. forces. In turn, Trump declared: “We are sending an armada, very powerful. We have submarines, very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier. We have the best military people on earth.”

Source: Why Is There So Little Popular Protest Against Today’s Threats of Nuclear War? – LA Progressive

What will it take?  What has to happen to force people to face the possibility?

Where have all the protesters gone?

The Mother Of Intervention

The US has been in the intervention business for many years and it only gets worse with each passing year.  But the problem is that this country has learned very little with each intervention……and we blunder off into yet another quagmire.

There are some simple rules for intervention and I mean a successful intervention….something the US has yet to master.

These rules were recently published in the American Conservative…….

After trillions of dollars spent, thousands of dead and wounded, and the creation of myriad new terrorist enemies, Washington could learn a few lessons when considering future interventions.

1. Do not attempt to establish multi-ethnic democracies in nations with no traditions of limited government. Each faction believes that “an alien master is worst of all” and dreads the certain prospect of total subordination to the election victors. Do not foster electoral ceremonies where freedom from fear and the rule of law are absent: they beget, at best, the democratic centralism of Lenin. Never propagate civil wars: the revenge killings last for a hundred years.

Read on…..

Source: 17 Rules for Foreign Interventions | The American Conservative

These are some simple rules that should be taught at the War College…after all it is they that carry out all the orders to intervene….

What is it that Einstein had to say about doing things?

The Battle Of The Somme

Just another history lesson of World War One…..a conflict that few Americans know anything about and even fewer care.

I read constantly….my library contains about 2000 books and not one of them is a work of fiction.  This is a review of the Battle of the Somme book…..

On 1 July 2016, a few Canadian Armed Forces personnel, mostly Newfoundlanders, journeyed to a monument in the north of France. They went to commemorate the centenary of Beaumont Hamel, one of many engagements which comprised the much larger World War I campaign known as the Battle of the Somme. As the padre intoned prayers in her lilting Newfoundland accent, the tone of the ceremony was sombre, even elegiac. On that same day in 1916, the infantry of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, a component of Britain’s imperial army, attacked German positions across open ground towards uncut barbed wire. The attack was a complete failure, the troops never breaching nor even reaching the German positions. Of this green regiment’s seven hundred and seventy officers and men, eighty percent were mown down in twenty minutes. Despite disasters of this nature all along the British line on 1 July, the Somme campaign persisted into November, and ended with over a million Anglo-French and German casualties.

Source: Somme: Into The Breach | RealClearDefense

The Battle of the Somme…..July 1916…..a conflict where many soldiers on both sides lost their lives….. By the end of the battle, the British Army had suffered 420,000 casualties including nearly 60,000 on the first day alone. The French lost 200,000 men and the Germans nearly 500,000.

Learn more of this horrific battle…..

Source: First World War.com – Battles – The Battle of the Somme, 1916

I do this to keep the memory of these brave men and women alive….they should never slide from our memory.