Day: April 27, 2017

Closing Thought–27Apr17

Recently New Orleans starting taking down some of the Civil War monuments….I have mixed emotions….one these should not be destroyed instead move them to a location and build a theme park around them….”How Not To Fight A War”…..believe it or not it is a heritage….a heritage that I think is disgusting but one nonetheless….

I bring this up because of something that your president has done…..but it has little to do with mortar and stone monuments (for now)…….

President Trump will sign an executive order on Wednesday instructing the Department of the Interior to review the designations of national monuments by his predecessors, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Trump’s order reportedly will instruct Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to examine those designations to determine whether they were within the scope of a century-old law that allows presidents to set aside federal lands without congressional approval.

The executive order is mainly geared toward reviewing President Obama’s designation of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah in December, according to the Tribune. The 1.35 million acre site was preserved due to its Native American heritage, but critics say Obama’s designation was an overreach of executive power.

Trump is expected to sign a broader series of executive orders on energy and the environment this week, following an executive order that began undoing Obama’s climate change agenda.

“I am taking an historic step to lift the restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion and to cancel job-killing regulations,” Trump said last month.

(thehill.com)

This is a con job…the US has enough oil outlets without destroying anything else….but what can we expect from a “businessman” for a president?

Of course this one is more to rape the national parks for the oil than about our other monuments….but will it effect those waiting to be built?  Like the WW1 monument……

The one good thing is that it is an EO and can be flushed down the toilet with the rest of the toilet paper.

A musical interlude to end the day……an excellent album of my generation….Super Session…….

Enjoy the rest of your day…I am off like a dirty shirt….back in the morrow…peace out….chuq

The Attack Of The Boars

This would be a good title for a discussion of Trump and his supporters….nothing is more boring than those people……but in this case I am talking about pigs (yes these same people could be called that…but not in this incident)…..the four legged type of pig.

It appears that ISIS has a new foe in the battle for Iraq……

An apparent ambush of ISIS militants is making headlines, if only because those who overpowered them were reportedly wild boars. A tribal leader in northern Iraq tells the Times of London the animals killed three members of the Islamic State and injured five others on Sunday. His best guess is that the militants were preparing to launch an ambush of their own near a Kurdish checkpoint some 55 miles from Kirkuk. “The area is dense with reeds, which are good for hiding in,” he says, but he speculates the men’s movements disturbed the boars.

Refugees fleeing fighting in the area spotted the bodies, and a Kurdish intelligence official floats an alternative theory—that the militants were near the checkpoint because they intended to defect and surrender, reports the Telegraph. Either way, ISIS responded by killing as many wild boars as they could in the area, he says.

NY Post had another take on this situation……..

A herd of wild boars became the latest group to join the fight against ISIS — killing three jihadi barbarians during a stampede this week in Iraq, according to reports.

At least eight ISIS fighters were taking cover among dense reeds in the al-Rashad region about 55 miles southwest of Kirkuk, preparing for a surprise strike on local anti-ISIS tribesmen when the hero boars charged them on Sunday, Newsweek reported.

But in the three days before the boars attacked, the militants executed 25 people attempting to escape the clutches of the terror group, Assi told the Times.

“We know that a massacre took place in Hawija district through our sources,” he said. “This will not be ISIS’s last massacre against citizens.”

ISIS is believed to have recovered the bodies of their dead , and have now began to shoot at the boars in retaliation.

This is a problem with a solution….EAT PORK!

This technique is a bit cheaper than bombs….a plan to consider….for it is better than anything that we are trying these days.

What About “Net Neutrality”?

If you are a blogger then you use the internet a lot….researching your thoughts before they are written….and if you are a blogger then you have some sort of internet defense widget on your site….for we all are concerned about the loss of the internet for public consumption.

Well it looks like our President one Donald J. Trump, is siding with the internet companies in their dash to massive profits and total control……but that was before….it looks like something has changed in the Trump admin…..but unfortunately, to me, something still smells about this……

A top US regulatory official on Wednesday unveiled plans to roll back so-called “net neutrality” rules that require broadband firms to treat all online traffic equally.

The announcement by Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai, appointed by President Donald Trump, signals a new round of wrangling over internet regulatory policy by seeking to reverse rules aimed at avoiding the emergence of “fast” and “slow” lanes at the discretion of carriers.

Pai, speaking to a Washington forum, said the 2015 FCC order — which is being challenged in court by major broadband firms — did not deliver on its promise but rather added new regulatory burdens which stifled investment.

Source: Flash – US regulator vows to roll back ‘net neutrality’ rules – France 24

We must be aware of the gimmicks that these politicians will pull…..

We need to be vigilant……this too will pass into a control substance.

I trust no one when they start dicking with the neutrality thing….

How about you?

Is It The Downfall Of Western Civilization?

I have seen many TV shows and heard of movies that use the downfall of Western Civilization as their main premise…..I have talked to numerous people that also see mankind as a cancer and that civilization could be short lived…..

Situations are pointing to an end to Western civilization….at least according to some predictors…….including one Davis Brooks……

In his New York Times column Friday, David Brooks is worried about what might be the ultimate big picture: the collapse of Western civilization. He sees the signs all over, particularly in the rise of “strong men” around the world such as Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Erdogan, Kim Jong Un, and, yes, our own president. “While running for office, Donald Trump violated every norm of statesmanship built up over these many centuries, and it turned out many people didn’t notice or didn’t care,” writes Brooks. Modern governments, he adds, are beginning to resemble “premodern mafia states, run by family-based commercial clans.” He’s also worried about the rise of fringe parties, as can be seen in the presence of Marine Le Pen in France, and the “collapse of liberal values at home,” as seen in the shouting down of speakers at college campuses.

“These days, the whole idea of Western civ is assumed to be reactionary and oppressive,” he concludes. “All I can say is, if you think that was reactionary and oppressive, wait until you get a load of the world that comes after it.” At the BBC, Rachel Nuwer paints a similarly dark picture after interviewing scientists and historians about the long-term prospects for Western societies. The two main themes are growing economic and ecological stresses, but she does end with a hint of hope, summing up the view of one of her interviewees: “Western civilization is not a lost cause, however. Using reason and science to guide decisions, paired with extraordinary leadership and exceptional goodwill, human society can progress to higher and higher levels of well-being and development.” Click for Brooks’ column, and for Nuwer’s.

Disclaimer:  I do not use NYT much as a source ut I read this piece and thought it would make good fodder for conversation…….

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.

Ariel Durant

Yes a very heavy subject…..and please let the rest of us in on what you think about the prediction of the downfall of Western civilization.

Where Is The “Political Will”?

Every politician that has to stand up and make a political speech has in one way of the other promised to end the wars in the Middle East in one fashion or another.  But is there a political will to end these conflicts?

As long as the M-IC is in control there will be NO end to these conflicts……the pursuit of profit overrides all else…….

As US sanctions on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime have failed to end the war in Syria, the international community must exercise the political will to do so—and, in the meantime, establish safe zones that would put civilians out of harm’s way, according to two members of the Syrian Civil Defense (SCD), also known as the White Helmets.

“The sanctions are not having the intended effect of stopping the war,” said Jehad Mahameed, a liaison officer for the SCD. Manal Abazeed, a volunteer with the White Helmets, called for world leaders, particularly US President Donald Trump, to exercise “the political will to stop this conflict.”

Source: “Political Will” Needed to End War in Syria | RealClearDefense

But let us look at Trump’s Middle East……..

The Trump administration has performed a variety of policy somersaults in the Middle East. One day it opposed intervention in Syria. Then it intervened. When it came to Israel, candidate Trump pledged a neutral policy. Then, as president, he embraced Israel for a few weeks before returning to a more detached approach. Where will it all head?

Today the Center for the National Interest hosted two eminent Middle East experts to discuss the new administration’s options and outlook in the region. Philip Gordon, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, was Barack Obama’s White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf Region. Before that, he served as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs. Michael Singh, now the managing director and Lane-Swig Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, was senior director for Middle East Affairs in George W. Bush’s National Security Council. Before that, he served as special assistant to Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell. Geoffrey Kemp, the Center’s senior director for regional security as well as a former special assistant to Ronald Reagan and NSC senior director for Near East and South Asian Affairs, moderated the event.

Source: Trump’s Middle East | The National Interest

There will be NO end to these conflicts….for Trump has entered the world of the war hawk and once entered there is NO turning back.

To be fair we cannot blame Trump for these situations….NO it is a bi-partisan effort to continue war at any cost…….

After all the musings that Donald J. Trump fails the “presidential” test, he joined the tradition that confirms leadership stature: CNN’s most “serious and reasonable” foreign policy pundit, Fareed Zakaria soberly intoned that, after bombing Syria, Trump “became president of the United States”.

Trump’s 59 Tomahawk missiles, killed seven (including four children), injured nine, was accompanied by a near-universal repetition of an “atrocity” cover-story, No investigation was required before all corporate media (major newspapers, CNN, MSNBC and Fox) sang in unison. Endless “outrage” over dozens of Syrian deaths due to some sort of poisoning that may (or may not) be sarin gas and seems far more likely to have been either an accidental destruction of a warehouse or done by the terrorists groups Assad that recently beat back—ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusrun (who are supposed to be U.S. enemies, too).

Source: Bipartisan Wars R’ US – LA Progressive

The US seems to never learn from its mistakes in war…..NEVER……

Wars begin with political motives and end with political arrangements. Following the wisdom of Carl von Clausewitz, Nadia Schadlow begins War and the Art of Governance by observing that “Success in war depends on the consolidation of political order, which requires control over territory and the hard work of building local governmental institutions.” Countering the contemporary view, Schadlow tells us that this has not been principally an interagency effort but an important mission for the United States Army. In her accounting, in war after war, the United States Army and its partners have been faced not only with stability operations but also the hard task of governance “to shape the political outcome of the war.”

Source: Lessons Unlearned: War, Occupation, and Governance | World Affairs Journal

(Insert Einstein quote here)

Misadventures In Paradise

Since the discovery of oil and its importance to nations there has been many adventures into the Middle East and in all that time none have actually considered the outcome of any meddling…..that is what happens when you chase profits.

Yep, America has been sticking its nose into the region for many decades and in all that time no one has ever understood the region therefore all of our intervention has been nothing more that one misadventure after another….

The American Conservative takes a look at the region and our interventions…..

“From now on,” President Donald Trump declared in his inaugural address, “it’s going to be only America first, America first!” If so, no region stands to be more affected than West Asia and North Africa—what Americans call “the Middle East.” America’s interests there are now entirely derivative rather than direct. They are a function of the self-appointed roles of the United States as the warden of world order, the guarantor of other nations’ security, the shepherd of the world economy, and the custodian of the global commons. If America is now to look out only for itself, it has little obvious reason to be much involved in the Middle East.

The United States is a secular democracy. It has no intrinsic interest in which theology rules hearts or dominates territory in the Middle East. It is not itself now dependent on energy imports from the Persian Gulf or the Maghreb. For most of the two-and-a-half centuries since their country was born, Americans kept a healthy distance from the region and were unharmed by events there. They extended their protection to specific nations in the Middle East as part of a global struggle against Soviet communism that is long past. What happens in the region no longer determines the global balance of power.

Source: America’s Misadventures in the Middle East | The American Conservative

Many wish that we could claim a victory in our adventurism….sadly we cannot….most of today’s problems can be seen through the eyes of Lebanon in the 1980’s……

We should take a step back and re-think of war in the Middle East…..for the scorecard today is not good……

Make no mistake: after 15 years of losing wars, spreading terror movements, and multiplying failed states across the Greater Middle East, America will fight the next versions of our ongoing wars. Not that we ever really stopped.

Sure, Washington traded in George W. Bush’s expansive, almost messianic attitude toward his Global War on Terror for Barack Obama’s more precise, deliberate, even cautious approach to an unnamed version of the same war for hegemony in the Greater Middle East.

Sure, in the process kitted-up 19 year-olds from Iowa became less ubiquitous features on Baghdad’s and Kabul’s busy boulevards, even if that distinction was lost on the real-life targets of America’s wars—and the bystanders (call them “collateral damage”) scurrying across digital drone display screens.

Source: How to Lose the Next War in the Middle East | War Is Boring

This is not the first time that I have called for a fresh approach to the Middle East…..old school solutions have done nothing but waste lives, equipment and money for decades.

Every question that can be answered must be answered or at least engaged. Illogical thought processes must be challenged when they arise.Wrong answers must be corrected.Correct answers must be affirmed. —From the Erudite faction manifesto