Month: September 2017

Who Is “Begging For War”?

I seems that I cannot move past the North Korean problem…..

North Korea has gotten the world into a lather……he, Li’l Kim, has been throwing stones at Japan and threatening the rest of the Pacific with his words….plus he keeps setting off a nuke a month (so it seems)….of course the US and Trump have been issuing dire warnings for Li’l Kim’s digressions….and the people and country that would be most hit if there is a war is usually silent and when they do speak they talk of calm and reason.

Tough words from the North and tougher words from the East…..seems that everyone of the major players is begging for something besides a calm and rational solution…..

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the Security Council that North Korea was ‘begging for war.’ She said this in reference to the test of a thermonuclear – hydrogen – bomb by the North Korean military. ‘Enough is enough,’ said Ambassador Haley. ‘We have taken an incremental approach, and despite the best of intentions, it has not worked.’

Ambassador Haley made these comments at the UN Security Council, where there are five permanent members and ten rotating members. These five permanents members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) are all nuclear weapon powers. They are not on the Council permanently (with veto power) because they have nuclear weapons. There are declared nuclear weapon states (India, Israel and Pakistan) that do not have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. It is an accident of history that gives these five countries the right to be the judges of the planet.

Source: Who Is Begging for War? We Have Such a Poor Understanding of the Conflict with North Korea | Alternet

As this situation progresses it looks like some especially the MSM, are pushing for some sort of pre-emptive strike against NK…..attack to prevent a war……(think that over)……

Articles discussing pre-emptive strikes on North Korea are now everywhere. Based on a small number of in-depth analytical studies, they detail military challenges, human costs and likely outcomes. While those articles prepare us for the short term, they ignore the potential long-term strategic change that would result from a conflict on the Korean peninsula.

We’ve seen this before in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Articles discussed the military challenges, human costs and likely outcomes. But the conflict ultimately upset the delicate regional balance of power and led to an outbreak of suppressed identity conflicts, dispersion of military know-how, and an uncontrolled spread in disruptive ideologies. Those effects weren’t unforeseen, but rather ignored in the rush to war.

Source: Pre-emptive Thinking About Pre-emptive Strikes | RealClearDefense

There are so many facets to the complex situation and the best they can do for a solution is that a first strike to prevent a war ids the best they can do.

Closing Thought–14Sep17

It is just fun watching the reactions to the world has to anything North Korea does……you really have NO idea how many plans are out there to deal with the ego of Li’l Kim…..

South Korea has come up with a plan that could eliminate the use of nukes by anybody…..

South Korea has taken the unusual step of publicly speaking about plans to assassinate Kim Jong Un and other North Korean leaders in the event of conflict. After North Korea’s latest nuclear test, South Korean Defense Minister Song Young Moo told lawmakers that he was speeding up the creation of a “decapitation unit” capable of crossing the border for nighttime missions against North Korean facilities and its “wartime command,” the New York Times reports. Officials say the special forces unit, which will apparently be comprised of members of the “Spartan 3000” unit, will be capable of striking anywhere in the Korean Peninsula within 24 hours. Song has said he wants to have the unit ready by the end of the year.

The creation of the unit is part of South Korea’s “Massive Punishment and Retaliation” plan for possible war with the North, Vox reports. Analysts say that by disclosing facts about the “decapitation unit,” Seoul appears to want to make Pyongyang nervous enough to think twice about its nuclear program and return to the negotiating table. “The best deterrence we can have, next to having our own nukes, is to make Kim Jong Un fear for his life,” says retired Gen. Shin Won Sik, formerly the South Korean military’s chief strategist. President Trump, meanwhile, said Tuesday that tough new sanctions are “no big deal” compared to “what ultimately will have to happen” to North Korea, CNN reports.

South Korea has been dealing with the attitudes of the Kim family for over 50 years…..and in all that time they never considered taking the culprit out?

What were their plans before this one?

States That Never Were

WE all know that there are 50 states (I’m guessing they still teach geography)…..but there could be more if we were to include our overseas empire of Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam etc…..and these days there seems to be a movement, of sorts, to create new states….mostly through session…..Texas has played with the idea….even parts of California have given the idea some thought.

Now history I do enjoy some history there have been several regions that should have been states but for one reason or another…..a great article in the American Conservative has taken a look at this historic situation….

In today’s polarized political climate, the political, economic, and cultural differences between regions and even states seem exacerbated. These divisions have led to renewed calls for carving up or even secession by some states, namely California.

In the meantime, efforts to incorporate Puerto Rico as a new state continue unabated.

Among other potential “new states” are the island territories of Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Source: Five U.S. States That Never Made the Map | The American Conservative

Like I keep saying….there is so much history about this country that we are never taught….and most of it is far more interesting than the mundane crap they do teach….and that is why I am here…..teach the untaught.

Turn The Page!

On The Road To Single-Payer?

WE have been having the same debate for a half a century about health care in this country…..in all that time the one policy that made more4 sense than any of the others put forth was the single-payer plan or Medicare for all……

Sander has also been pushing the idea of a single payer all his years in Congress….with little enthusiasm shown by his colleagues….but is that about to change?

Bernie Sanders rolled out his vision to overhaul the health care system on Wednesday, one in which everybody would get their insurance from the government through Medicare instead of through their jobs or a private insurer. Sanders calls it the Medicare for All Act of 2017, but you’ll also hear phrases such as “single payer” and “universal health care” used to describe it. One key part missing: details on how to pay for it, though Sanders plans to release a separate paper on that, reports the Wall Street Journal. Coverage:

  • The basics: Per CNN, everybody gets a “Universal Medicare card,” which would be used to cover all health bills, from surgeries to dental care to substance abuse treatment. Co-payments would go away, and people would pay premiums based on their incomes, reports the AP. Private insurers would still exist, but for things such as elective plastic surgery or, sometimes, to act as middlemen between the government and hospitals or doctors.
  • A ‘right’: Sanders makes his case in an op-ed in the New York Times. “Guaranteeing health care as a right is important to the American people not just from a moral and financial perspective; it also happens to be what the majority of the American people want.”
  • ‘Single payer’: David Leonhardt of the New York Times has a Q&A on the fundamentals, including the basic question of what the term “single payer” means. In short, it “describes a system in which only one entity—the government—pays medical bills. If all Americans had Medicare rather than insurance through their jobs, it would be a single-payer system.” Vox says Sanders’ system is far more generous than single-payer plans in Canada and elsewhere.
  • The cost: This could cost hundreds of billions of dollars more per year, per the Journal. Details are yet to come, but Sanders envisions a progressive tax increase, with the wealthy paying more income, capital gains, and estate taxes, reports Newsweek. The senator says higher taxes for families would be offset by the fact that they no longer have to buy insurance. Still, in regard to single-payer systems, “no one—including Sanders—has truly reckoned with how to pay for whatever system they might support,” writes Mike Allen at Axios.
  • Litmus test? By all accounts, the chances of it passing a GOP-controlled Congress are precisely 0%. But it’s turning into a political litmus test of sorts for Democrats, reports the Washington Post. Sanders has the support of 15 Democratic senators so far, including all of those seen as potential 2020 presidential candidates. Co-sponsors include Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, and Kamala Harris. But many prominent Democrats are not on board, at least yet, including Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and those in tough re-election fights, reports Politico.
  • The politics: No, this isn’t going to pass, “but here’s the big question,” writes Perry Bacon Jr. at FiveThirtyEight. “Is it going to become one of the central goals of the Democratic Party and a defining feature of the campaign of whichever Democrat is the party’s nominee in 2020?” As of now, this “seems very likely,” as the Democratic party seems to be gravitating to the left. But Bacon lays out the political and policy reasons why Democrats might avoid “becoming the party of single payer.”
  • Relishing the fight: Republicans see a chance to pounce. “We welcome the Democrats’ strategy of moving even further left,” says Katie Martin, spokesperson for the Senate GOP’s campaign organization, per the AP.

Let the fight begin!

If someone would spend more time checking out how single payer really works then the answer would be as easy as a straight up vote…..and this national nightmare could be over.

Where’s The Money?

The time draws closer for the Congress to take up the issue of military funding….that is cash that we will need to funding all the wars we are now fighting and the ones on the horizon awaiting approval to be fought.

It appears that there are a few in Congress that want the AUMF to be addressed before any funding is approved….

Senate officials are hoping to get to a final vote on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a military spending bill in excess of $700 billion. Getting to that vote, however, means dealing with all the military and war-related amendments in the bill.

Senate leaders appear to have decided that the easiest way to get around this is to severely curtail debate on certain particularly controversial issues, with an 89-3 vote today agreeing to limit procedural debates on the matter.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is trying to manage the debate, which is to say, dramatically curtail the debate. There are still major issues to be settled, however, with Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) both pushing major debates, on war authorization and transgender soldiers, respectively.

Sen. Paul intends to repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). The amendment is seen as politically awkward for some hawks, who argue that they want to create a new AUMF that explicitly covers current wars, but who are reluctant to see any limitations placed on the way America’s wars are waged.

(antiwar.com)

That’s the 2001 AUMF problem all over. Though on paper it was intended to only cover 9/11 and the Afghan War, the authorization has been used by all presidents since as carte blanche to wage any war, anywhere on earth, in which the term terrorism can remotely be applied.

There is no secret if you are a regular here on IST that I am a definite antiwar person…..while I do not agree with muich the Sen. Paul offers up as policy I do appreciate his stand in the AUMF……

As Congress takes up the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), I will insist it vote on my amendment to sunset the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force.

Why?

Because these authorizations to use military force are inappropriately being used to justify American warfare in 7 different countries. Sunsetting both AUMFs will force a debate on whether we continue the Afghanistan war, the Libya war, the Yemen war, the Syria war, and other interventions.

Our military trains our soldiers to be focused and disciplined, yet the politicians who send them to fight have for years ignored those traits when developing our foreign policy.

Source: Rand Paul: Why we must repeal the 16-year-old Authorization for the Use of Military Force | Rare

Personally, I think any new conflict we must fight must be authorized by Congress….there should be NO blanket authorization.

Update:  After writing this draft news came down about the defeat of this proposal….

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) had to push heavily and very publicly against the Senate leadership to get even the limited debate that ultimately occurred on his amendment, aiming to revoke the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). The vote did not occur. In the middle of the debate Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) moved to table (kill) the amendment, forcing an immediate vote. The Senate then voted to kill Paul’s amendment, by a vote of 61-36.

The post-9/11 AUMF has been interpreted broadly by US presidents as allowing unlimited war-making powers against anything even loosely described as “terror.” Sen. Paul argued that the AUMF was wrongly been used to authorize seven distinct wars, and that repealing it would force Congress to debate specific authorizations for specific wars as an alternative.

While he’d hoped this would bring in support not only from opponents of the war, but from hawks eager to get their votes on the record to authorize these many, effectively unauthorized wars, little support ultimately materialized. In addition to Sen. Paul, speaking in favor during the debate were Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Dick Durban (D-IL).

While the failure of the amendment doesn’t preclude future efforts at passing new AUMFs to cover America’s many wars, it makes such debate a less pressing matter. Talk of an AUMF for the ISIS wars, put off since the 2014 mid-term elections on various reasons, can be expected to remain just talk, and no real advance on the effort is likely.

(antiwar.com)

This seems to get a little more popular every time they try to bring it up for a vote……hopefully the Congress will come to its senses eventually.

On To “Kurdexit”

Remember last year the big mash up over the “Brexit”….that referendum where the UK would leave the EU?

Well there is a similar thing happening in the Middle East…..on 25 Sept of this year the Kurds will vote on a referendum to leave the country of Iraq……

It was an eventful summer, especially in the Middle East. It all began with the Qatar kerfuffle on June 5, followed soon thereafter with a change in Saudi Arabia’s line of succession. Then came violence and protests over security measures at the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem. Mosul and Tel Afar were liberated in Iraq. The American-backed Syrian Defense Forces marched on Raqqa, the self-declared Islamic State’s “capital.” Yemen descended further into a humanitarian disaster with 600,000 cases of cholera and imminent famine. Morocco exploded in protest over the death of a fishmonger last fall at the hands of police. Iran continued to consolidate its power around the Middle East. The Trump administration withheld or delayed about $300 million in military assistance to Egypt over “geopolitical and human rights concerns.” Turkey’s massive purge continued. And prosecutors in Israel edged closer to indicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for corruption.

There was another story of potentially enormous consequences that received scant attention, however. Throughout the summer Iraqi Kurds prepared for a referendum on independence that will be held on Sept. 25. For the better part of a century, Iraq’s Kurds have been trying to undo what the League of Nations did under British pressure in 1925 when it attached the former Ottoman province of Mosul to Iraq. Their incorporation into Iraq has been an unhappy experience for the Kurds, to say the least.

Source: Is the world ready for “Kurdexit”? Referendum among Iraqi Kurds has Middle East on edge – Salon.com

There are very few people that see this referendum as a good thing for Iraq or the larger Middle East…..that is with the exception of the Israelis…..

The president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Masoud Barzani, on Tuesdayrejected an Iraqi parliament vote authorizing Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi “to take all measures” to reject the Kurdish independence referendum and preserve Iraqi unity. Speaking in Kirkuk following the vote, Barzani vowed that the referendum would still go ahead on September 25. Abadi has threatened that Kurds will lose all their political gains if they proceed with the vote and instead urged them to come to Baghdad for a dialogue. While the referendum has little international support, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahureaffirmedTuesday that Israel “supports the Kurdish people’s legitimate attempts at self-determination.”

The predictions of the aftermath are dire…..that the violence is far from over even with the defeat of ISIS…..plus they see the Kurds expanding to all parts of the Middle East….Syria, Turkey, Iran, etc…..none will be good for the well being of the region.

Closing Thought–13Sep17

Death By Suicide!

There have been many tragic stories that have come to light since we started down this road of war 16 years ago…..it is sad that so many Americans have had to die….so many have had to be repaired….and especially all those that just could not cope and took their own lives.

Below is a story by a military wife that had ro deal with the results of a husband’s suicide……

Most military families will tell you that the trajectory of their lives was drastically altered following the attacks that took place 16 years ago, on Sept. 11, 2001. It was no different for my young family. We were stationed in Enid, Okla., and my husband was a Marine Corps instructor pilot, training student pilots to fly T-37 trainer jets. We had two young boys, ages 4 and 6. Oklahoma was supposed to be our last duty station before we transitioned back to civilian life; we planned to leave the Marine Corps and move home to live near our families in Massachusetts. My husband, Maj. John Ruocco, just happened to be home that morning and we were enjoying a cup of coffee together when we noticed “breaking news” on the television. We sat in stunned silence as we watched the second plane hit the second tower. My husband took a deep breath and said, “this is going to change everything for us.” Four years later, three months after he returned from a combat tour in Iraq, my husband died by suicide.

Source: Hope, Help, Heal: Suicide Prevention and the Military | RealClearDefense

Suicide is a battle that we are not winning….all stories need to be told and heard…..maybe somewhere3 we can find a way to heal these troubled souls.

Will She Ever Shut Up?

She is back!

Just when you thought it was safe to read the news……you then have your Johnson banged into a door.

I am talking about Hillary Clinton.  She is back and with a new book telling the world about her place in the world during the 2016 election and of course assigning blame for her overwhelming loss.

NO!  I have not read the book and will never….but apparently she does what she and all her cronies have been doing since the vote count….blaming Bernie and his supporters for her loss.

Letter to the editor: 

Hillary Clinton blaming Sen. Bernie Sanders for her loss is deeply offensive and beyond the pale.

Millions of citizens from all walks of life (myself included) supported Sanders passionately because we loved the positions he was willing to fight for and the fact that he was not beholden to wealthy corporate donors.

Clinton represents everything that is wrong with the political class in this country, in both the Democratic and Republican parties, which have lost touch with the real needs and cries of the people they’re supposed to represent. I sincerely hope that Sanders joins the growing movement for a viable new progressive party.

With her latest blame game, Clinton has only further alienated every true progressive who didn’t support her to begin with.

Lydia Johnson; Roanoke, Va.

Sen. Bernie Sanders has spent years in Congress as an independent, not helping the Democratic Party much. But when Democrats put forth a woman, he pushed his way into the Democratic primary. Sanders has no allegiance to the Democratic Party and has done damage by bringing out the whining kids. I am not a fan.

— Victoria Kugler

I voted for Clinton, but in the primary I wanted Sanders. One problem was that Democrats had Clinton anointed.

— Karen Benson

Clinton blames Donald Trump, Sanders and just about everything and everyone for her failed run for the White House. How about looking in the mirror? She did not campaign very hard. She did not visit key states. She lost in the final weeks. She thought she had it in the bag. The ultimate example of entitlement.

— Sharon Raguckas

She is a typical arrogant politician……she just cannot bring herself to look at her terrible candidacy ans the reason she lost…..she had NO message but that has been the problem with most Dems since 2008….they have NOTHING to offer the American people.

I know it is a bitter pill to swallow….but do it anyway….you lost….stop whining and go spend some of your money…..

Time for her and her cronies to step aside and let the Dems get on with finding a message that will resonate with the American people….doing it the Clinton way is a dead issue.

Will she ever shut up?

World War 2–The Big Ones

Speaking of war……..

The war of the “Greatest Generation”…..when American went to war against Germany and Japan and to a small part Italy…..sad that was 80 years ago and slowly those that fought that war are disappearing….soon their voices will be gone and I am afraid so will be the caring of a nation.

When yopu talk to younger people about that war and ask to name a few of the big battles you get a wide array of answers but the one the they remember will be D-Day and Pearl Harbor….

So I ask….what were the big battles of World War 2?

World War II was the greatest conflict in history, carried out on a scale almost impossible to grasp. In many ways it was the first modern war, in which airpower played a vital role both on land and at sea, but many actions were ultimately won by the determination and grit of the foot soldier. Here’s the whole vast panoramic epic of the Second World War presented in 20 of its most significant battles.

Source: The 20 Most Important Battles of World War II

I try to keep my readers informed……especially about our many wars….hopefully some one will do the same of our other wars…..you should never forget the sacrifices that our soldiers made for their country.

Turn The Page!