“Biggest Error In Modern History”

We are in the middle of the 100 year anniversary of World War One…..the Great War….The War To End All Wars…..the war that changed the world forever and gave us the world we have today.

But was this war necessary?

Some say it was inevitable….while others say that it could have been avoided….and even some that think the UK made a huge mistake by entering into the war….people like NiallFerguson….

Britain could have lived with a German victory in the first world war, and should have stayed out of the conflict in 1914, according to the historian Niall Ferguson, who described the intervention as “the biggest error in modern history”.

In an interview with BBC History Magazine, Ferguson said there had been no immediate threat to Britain, which could have faced a Germany-dominated Europe at a later date on its own terms, instead of rushing in unprepared, which led to catastrophic costs.

“Britain could indeed have lived with a German victory. What’s more, it would have been in Britain’s interests to stay out in 1914,” he said before a documentary based on his book The Pity of War, which will be screened by BBC2 as part of the broadcaster’s centenary season.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/30/britain-first-world-war-biggest-error-niall-ferguson

He makes a good case but I would like to hear from some of my UK readers on what they think about this idea….was it a huge mistake?

The US was only part of this war for a little over a year and most Americans try to erase this period of war from their memory….it devastated Europe….so I am interested in what my European readers have to say about this idea.

I am fascinated with this war….think about a single action that had 600,00 troops on one side attacking a smaller force on the other….that was one single action had that many troops and the deaths of hundreds of thousands and they did this for about 4 years…action after action…..that amazes me that none of the generals could see that what they were doing was not doing nay good so why not try something different….but they did not they just kept throwing troops by the thousands at each other and let the deaths amount up…..

Like I said…fascinating!

Please let me know what you think of this proposal…..ain’t history a hoot?

Geopolitics Of Trade In Asia

Fearless Leader has taken to Tweeter and in so many characters has crapped on everything he was suppose to have covered with our allies at the meeting in Vietnam……..there is a new geopolitical spin to the trade in the coming years….

The APEC Leaders’ summit meeting, which took place last week in Danang, Vietnam, crystallized the new geopolitics of trade in Asia. The leaders of the three largest economies in the world—the United States, China, and Japan—each redefined the roles their nation will play in sustaining, torpedoing, or adjusting the postwar trading order. Little is assured on how free trade and multilateral undertakings will fare as the three giants reposition themselves in their leadership bid. The only certainty ahead for us is that it will be a bumpy ride.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2017/11/15/the-new-geopolitics-of-trade-in-asia/

For instance Japan’s Abe would like to re-start the “Quad” from years past…..

The “Quad”?

In June this year, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will have been in office for one-and-a-half years — a rare achievement for a Japanese prime minister in recent memory. Most of his time in office has been devoted to getting Japan’s economic house in order via “Abenomics,” and reinvigorating Japan’s domestic debate about defense issues, including collective self-defense, military spending, and national security strategy. Abe has given considerably less attention to taking the lead on bold international initiatives as he had done as a younger prime minister.

During his first term as prime minister, in 2006-2007, Abe initiated a Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD) between Asia’s maritime democracies: Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. While the QSD drew these powers to the table early on, all concerned by the normative uncertainties posed to the regional order by China’s rise, it later fell apart. In particular, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd pulled Australia out of the QSD because its participation in that dialogue imperiled the trajectory of its relations with China. China, for its part, wasted no time in protesting what it saw as an overt attempt at encirclement.

https://thediplomat.com/2014/05/shinzo-abes-quadrilateral-initiative-gone-and-forgotten/

The “Quad” idea died and now it will see a rebirth……

Ten years ago, an American, an Australian, an Indian, and a Japanese walked into a room in Manila. This was no joke. They were representing their governments at a quadrilateral meeting also known as “the Quad.” The initiative, meant to facilitate conversation and cooperation between the four maritime democracies in the context of the rise of China and India, lasted from mid-2006 to early 2008. Since it fell apart, analysts have perhaps spent more time discussing it than the officials did in implementing it.

Now, the Quad has been revived. A decade after that first exploratory meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum summit in the Philippines in May 2007, officials from the four countries met there once again ahead of the East Asia Summit earlier this month. This revival will only be sustainable if it is not just a signal, but has substance. That will entail exchanging views on the strategic and economic landscape in the region, and practical cooperation. Moreover, the reunion will only last if the countries learn some lessons from its past failure. These include establishing suitable membership, tempo and agenda, explaining to internal and external audiences what the quadrilateral is and is not, and preparing for pushback from China.

https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/rise-fall-rebirth-quad/

This is an ambush for China and its rising influence in the world….but will it be successful? Will Trump sign on or will he push his damn silly “America First” agenda that will leave this country in the mud of its own protectionist storm?

Keep in mind that protectionism is NOT patriotism……

President Trump has long wrapped his protectionist rhetoric in our flag, as necessary for America to “win” again. However, the idea that “good” American producers should be preferred over “bad” foreign producers for the good of our country gets backward who American consumers’ friends and enemies are when it comes to international trade.

That is a very important issue, as individuals share most in common as consumers. As Leonard Read, founder of the Foundation for Economic Education, wrote, “Consumer interest is the premise from which all economic reasoning should proceed.” That implies that since “my interest is progressively served by an increase of goods and services obtainable in willing exchange for my offerings … as a consumer, I choose freedom.”

https://capx.co/protectionism-isnt-patriotism/

Speaking of “Free Trade”.

We hear the term “free trade” almost daily….especially when someone is spouting off about trade and jobs it will create for us here in American…..but what about “free trade”?

Detroit carmakers get a lot of stick for their poor showing in Japan. Their Japanese sales have rarely exceeded token numbers and supposedly this is their own fault. They have apparently been so heedless of consumer needs that they haven’t even bothered to build cars with the steering wheel in the correct position for Japan’s drive-on-the-left roads. This “steering wheel” story has long enjoyed considerable credence among leading American opinion makers. Yet it is nonsense and does not stand up to even cursory examination.

The truth is that Detroit’s Big Three have always made plenty of cars configured for Japan. Indeed, as some of the first American corporations to go global, they have long catered to local needs around the world. But they have never been allowed to compete in Japan. In the words of Donald Trump, Japan does “things to us that make it impossible to sell cars in Japan, and yet, they sell cars [in the U.S.] and they come in by the hundreds of thousands on the biggest ships I’ve ever seen.”

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/there-is-no-such-thing-as-free-trade/

Trade is the life line of a country’s economy….keep that in mind when you listen to the crap that Fearless Leader spouts in his speeches….we are screwed!

GOP Tax Plan–Update

Taxes are all the buzz in DC these days…..even had a senator, Orin Hatch, go off about how tax cuts for the rich is an old dodge and he was tired of hearing it…..so to make him even more cranky than he is now I thought I would post a few more stats that he does not like to hear…..

President Donald Trump on Monday promised a tax overhaul by Christmas, even as a nonpartisan tax analysis group said the Senate package would leave half of taxpayers facing higher levies by 2027.

Speaking before a Cabinet meeting, Trump said, “We’re going to give the American people a huge tax cut for Christmas — hopefully that will be a great, big, beautiful Christmas present.”

Trump spoke as the Tax Policy Center said that while all income groups would see tax reductions, on average, under the Senate bill in 2019, 9 percent of taxpayers would pay higher taxes that year than under current law. By 2027, that proportion would grow to 50 percent, largely because the legislation’s personal tax cuts expire in 2026, which Republicans did to curb budget deficits the bill would create.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/20/senate-gop-tax-plan-to-ultimately-raise-taxes-for-half-of-us-tax-policy-center.html

Never fear all you ignorant Trump supporters….you are about to be humped so bad it will hurt for years to come…..

Then there is the liars in the House….especially Paul Ryan….he is almost a master at making it sound sound good that the poor do not mind being f*cked hard……

Once, at a town hall in Wisconsin, someone asked known anti-poverty crusader Paul Ryan (R-WI) the following question:

“I know that you’re Catholic, as am I, and it seems to me that most of the Republicans in the Congress are not willing to stand with the poor and working class as evidenced in the recent debates about health care and the anticipated tax reform. So I’d like to ask you how you see yourself upholding the church’s social teaching that has the idea that God is always on the side of the poor and dispossessed, as should we be.”

It’s a tricky one, but if you want to simultaneously cut taxes for rich people and benefits for poor people, you need to be ready for it. So, just in time for the tax debate, I’ve written a handy step-by-step guide on how to convince your constituents that a help-the-rich, whack-the-poor agenda is really what’s best for everybody:

(his 7 ways of pumping the poor)

https://talkpoverty.org/2017/11/20/paul-ryan-guide-pretending-care-poor/

Does any of that sound familiar? It should! You hear them almost daily every time there is an open mike for them to dash off to…..

And you people voted these douches into office….shame…shame….shame…..

Yemen–America’s Shame

For two year the Saudis have been bombing Yemen back into the Stone Age…..the humanitarian crisis is getting worse by the bomb…..not not are the people in starvation mode they are also facing the worse cholera epidemic in a 100 years…..and all made possible by the US and its aid to our buddies the Saudis.

As the world focuses on isolated incidents of terrorism taking place in Western countries, the wholesale slaughter being committed by Western countries against others generally goes unnoticed unless being pinned on the victim nation. However, even with Americans and other Westerners paying scant attention to Iraq and Syria, the conflict in Yemen scarcely gets a mention except in communities of human rights activists and geopolitical commentators.

Even after Yemen has overtaken Syria as the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis, most of the world has remained deathly silent about the situation unfolding there.

While not overwhelmingly involved with troops, bombing campaigns, and the like in the way that it is in Syria or Iraq, the United States is nonetheless complicit in the destruction of an entire country by providing intelligence, weapons, and political support to Saudi Arabia and the GCC in their war against the Yemeni people. In addition to that support, however, the United States has, at times, also contributed limited direct military support to the Saudi effort.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-faces-of-yemen-where-is-american-outrage/5619219

One of America’s most respected news stows is “60 Minutes” and they recently did a feature on Yemen…..

Saudi Arabia’s year long blockade and bombing campaign in Yemen has gotten very little coverage in the United States, even as the extreme food and fuel shortages have developed into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Now, as the Saudi noose on Yemen tightens — leaving 7 million people facing starvation and another 1 million infected with cholera — the war is having its moment in the media spotlight.

On Sunday, “60 Minutes” aired a 13-minute segment on the war’s devastating humanitarian toll. The program featured imagery of starving children and interviews with displaced people, all obtained after Saudi Arabia blocked “60 Minutes” from entering the country.

https://theintercept.com/2017/11/20/60-minutes-yemen-war-us-involvement/

The Saudis have gone so far as to bomb the available airport to keep supplies from entering into the country…..I lost a lot of respect I had for “60 Minutes” after they failed to report the whole story did nothing but a fluff piece to silence some critics…..this is why we have some much call out of “fake news”….no one wants to report the truth anymore.

An estimated 130 children or more are dying every day in war-torn Yemen from extreme hunger and disease, according to Save the Children, an international aid group

The charity said a continuing blockade by the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthi rebels aligned with the country’s former president was likely to further increase the death rate. It said more than 50,000 children are believed to have died in 2017.

The coalition closed all air, land and sea ports to stem the flow of arms from Iran on November 6, after Saudi Arabia intercepted a missile fired towards its capital Riyadh. It has since said that aid can go through “liberated ports” but not the key Houthi-controlled port of Hodeidah.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/yemen-children-are-dying-at-a-rate-of-130-a-day-while-saudiled-blockade-continues-20171118-gzo21m.html

Even the American Conversation has weighed in on the atrocity that is Yemen…..

Yemen has been upside down for three years. Hunger, epidemics, and a blockade are all getting tighter. But the misery has escalated following the ballistic missile which was fired from Yemen at the King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital on Nov. 4. Overnight, Yemen became completely isolated from the entire globe.

This development has ushered in a new wave of civilian suffering. It feels like the war has just opened a new chapter of violence in a country beset by crises since the eruption of the 2011 uprising.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/dispatch-from-yemen-were-cut-off-and-starving/

Sad and to watch American news then NO one cares about the plight of children in Yemen or the rate of starvation…..truly sad.

Saddam Was Right

Saddam…..remember him? He was the leader of Iraq that we hunted down and eventually hanged after a trial (if one could call it that…..he was always gonna die no matter what)….well it seems that he predicted the long and bloody stay for American troops……

His thoughts are documented here in an article in The American Conservative……with a little history thrown in for good measure……(did not want my readers to go with that shot of History)…….

In early 1917, during World War I, British general Sir Frederick Stanley Maude led an army of sixty thousand British and Indian soldiers from Basra up the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to Baghdad. His enemy was a Turkish army, some twenty-five-thousand strong, defending a province of what was then a part of the decrepit Ottoman Empire. Maude was hardly a creative campaigner (his troops called him “systematic Joe”), but then his conquest of Mesopotamia wasn’t much of a fight. “The Turkish Army that was recently before us,” he reported to his superiors, “has ceased to exist as a fighting force owing to its casualties, prisoners, demoralization and the loss of a large proportion of its artillery and stores.” Maude led his army into Baghdad on a prancing horse on March 11 and then, in the finest British tradition, issued a proclamation: “We come as liberators, not occupiers,” it said. The Iraqis thought otherwise.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-saddam-hussein-predicted-americas-failure-in-iraq/

Many people predicted the problems the US would have in Iraq…..a shame it all fell on deaf ears.

Kasserine Pass: A Humiliating Defeat

Operation Torch saw Americans troops land in North Africa to take on the Nazi’s best general, Rommel….the problem is that our troops were not ready to meet the likes of the Afrika Corps of the Germans…

One action was America’s worse defeat of World War Two…..Kasserine Pass in Tunisia.

Beware a Desert Fox when he’s cornered.

It was North Africa, in the winter of 1943, and American soldiers were feeling cocky as they prepared for their first ground battle against the Germans in World War II. So far, it hadn’t been a bad war for the U.S. Army. The GIs were well fed, well paid and well equipped, especially compared to their threadbare and envious British allies. Even better, their baptism by fire had been to splash ashore in Algeria and Morocco in November 1942, where the defenders had been unmotivated Vichy French soldiers who soon capitulated.

Maybe defeating Hitler wouldn’t be so hard, after all.

The GIs should have remembered what the British had learned the hard way: never underestimate the Germans. Soon Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, admiringly dubbed the “Desert Fox” by the British, would teach the rookie Americans a lesson on the art of war at a dusty defile called Kasserine Pass.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/kasserine-pass-americas-most-humiliating-defeat-world-war-ii-19574

While America and its allies were successful in beating the Nazis in World War Two….Kasserine Pass was a doubt in the minds of our generals.

Check For Runaway Slaves

Since 1865 the US has been slave free….and you would think that in the 21st century that slavery would be a thing of the past, right?

You would be greatly mistaken as I was when I first read an article about this situation……

Trafficked people passing through Libya have previously reported violence, extortion and slave labour. But the new testimony from the International Organization for Migration suggests that the trade in human beings has become so normalised that people are being traded in public.

“The latest reports of ‘slave markets’ for migrants can be added to a long list of outrages [in Libya],” said Mohammed Abdiker, IOM’s head of operation and emergencies. “The situation is dire. The more IOM engages inside Libya, the more we learn that it is a vale of tears for all too many migrants.”

The north African nation is a major exit point for refugees from Africa trying to take boats to Europe. But since the overthrow of autocratic leader Muammar Gaddafi, the vast, sparsely populated country has slid into violent chaos and migrants with little cash and usually no papers are particularly vulnerable.

http://www.therealafrican.com/2017/11/arab-slave-trade-re-surfaces-in-libya/

CNN brought this story to light…..they should be commended for finding this story and digging for the facts…..

CNN recently released an exclusive report detailing slave auctions occurring across Libya. Migrants and refugees, comprised of people who have travelled to Libya with the hopes of a better future, are being auctioned off. Instead of providing them with a better future, the smugglers sold them to labourers for under one thousand U.S. dollars. After seeing footage of such an auction taking place, CNN travelled to Libya to investigate further and to verify the information. The journalists witnessed one auction outside Tripoli and were told of at least eight others across the country – and there is believed to be more.

While CNN’s report may be bringing this issue to the attention of the mainstream media, this is not a new development. Mohammed Abdiker, the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Director of Operation and Emergencies, called the slave market in Libya “dire” after visiting earlier this year. In April, the Independent talked to migrants in a rehabilitation centre run by Médecins Sans Frontières in Sicily. Here they heard stories from Nigerian men who had spent time in Libya on their journey to Europe. While there, they were made to do hard labour, threatened with guns if they refused to work or asked for pay. This is not an isolated incident. IOM estimated almost half of the migrants arriving in Italy had been forced into work, 90% of this taking place in Libya.

http://theowp.org/libyas-modern-day-slave-trade/

The world and most media outlets do not want to report on such stories…..for no one cares about Africa…..so they ignore an important story as slave trade in Libya.

I have lost some respect for CNN over the last couple of decades…..but they have gained my respect for this story.

Are Dems Moving In The Right Direction?

The round of recent elections have found Dems in the cat bird seat……but does this mean that 2018 will go their way?

Personally , I think that the Dems are reading too much into their recent wins…..The LA progressive has seen this phenom pretty mush as I have……

The base is critical to victory — and it wants to move left. If you’re a Democrat, there’s a name for that unfamiliar emotion you were feeling last Tuesday night. It’s called happiness. But there is a serious risk that the party will draw the wrong lessons from last week’s results.

Here are seven important lessons from the November 7 results that a lot of Democrats seem to have missed.

https://www.laprogressive.com/democrats-misread-election-results

The DNC has done yet another autopsy and their findings are not all that encouraging…..

• Aggregated data and analysis show that policies, operations and campaign priorities of the national Democratic Party undermined support and turnout from its base in the 2016 general election. Since then, the Democratic leadership has done little to indicate that it is heeding key lessons from the 2016 disaster.

• The Democratic National Committee and the party’s congressional leadership remain bent on prioritizing the chase for elusive Republican voters over the Democratic base: especially people of color, young people and working-class voters overall.

• After suffering from a falloff of turnout among people of color in the 2016 general election, the party appears to be losing ground with its most reliable voting bloc, African-American women. “The Democratic Party has experienced an 11 percent drop in support from black women according to one survey, while the percentage of black women who said neither party represents them went from 13 percent in 2016 to 21 percent in 2017.”

There is more….read on below……..

https://democraticautopsy.org/executive-summary/

The Dems in my opinion still do not have a message other than “not Trump”……I think it will take more to win a deciding victory in 2018 other than “Not Trump”

Thoughts?

ISIS This, ISIS That

Does anyone remember ISIS? I ask because not much is in the news these days…..with all the sex and Russia stuff….ISIS has been pushed to the back page….but we still have troops that are fighting their way to crush this barbaric bunch of pigs.

When was the last time you heard the term “ISIS” used?

Been awhile, huh?

Good thing you found your way to IST….we have news and more…..

ISIS may be sliding from the news but they have gone no where…….

ISIL’s shift to guerrilla tactics has been underway since early last year. As the group lost more territory, it gradually adjusted its tactics to adapt to its new environment and to the relentless air and ground campaign against it. But on October 12, ISIL officially telegraphed its intention to switch to full insurgency mode. The group’s Arabic bulletin Al Naba published a report detailing the last time the organisation was obliged to do the same. Such a shift, the report added, has now become a necessity. The report puts into perspective the way the militants have been fighting, or not fighting, over the past month.

According to the report, the group’s previous incarnation, known as the Islamic State of Iraq, had become too weak to engage in fighting after intense battles throughout 2006 and 2007. The group was then on the run in Iraq and its top leaders at the time, Abu Omar Al Baghdadi and Abu Hamza Al Muhajir, felt compelled to make what the bulletin described as an “unprecedented and bold decision”.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/isil-2-0-a-terror-group-in-full-insurgency-mode-1.675881

The group is plotting attacks from Afghanistan…..

ISIS is using safe haven in Afghanistan and Pakistan to plan attacks in the U.S. ISIS operatives in Pakistan, Canada, and the Philippines planned a major coordinated attack against New York City in early 2016, according to the U.S. Justice Department. The cell planned to attack civilians in Times Square using firearms and suicide vests made using the signature ISIS explosive TATP. A U.S. citizen and ISIS operative in Pakistan told an undercover FBI asset that he received authorization from ISIS’s “Wilayat Khorasan” in Afghanistan for the attack. American, Canadian, Pakistani, and Philippine authorities dismantled the cell after the ISIS operative in Canada attempted to cross into the U.S. The cell’s geographic disposition indicates ISIS shifted more of its external operations activity out of Syria and Iraq. ISIS previously exported an external operations cell to Libya in December 2015, which is supporting ISIS’s attack campaign in Europe.

http://iswresearch.blogspot.com/2017/11/isis-plotting-attacks-from-afghanistan.html

Where will ISIS find their next stronghold?

The fall of its de facto Syrian capital Raqqa last month signaled the death of the Islamic State (ISIS) in the Middle East. On Friday, Syrian troops retook Deir ez-Zor, the last major city with an ISIS presence, just as Iraqi forces took over the crossing in al-Qaim, near the group’s final urban stronghold.

As the group flees the Middle East, it has two obvious destinations: Central and South Asia. Central Asia has accounted for upwards of 5,000 ISIS troops, and South Asia has 40 percent of the global Muslim population – and indeed an entire dedicated ISIS faction – making the region the natural destination for fleeing militants.

https://thediplomat.com/2017/11/isis-might-have-one-last-escape-route-pakistan/

As you can see…..they may be defeated but only momentarily…..they will be back……you can bet on that sure thing.

In Saner Thought

"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error"..Thomas Paine

Month: November 2017