Closing Thought–15Dec17

Most everyone knows that the US has been stuck in Afghanistan for almost 17 years now….and it appears that another western nation will follow in our footsteps.

France followed in our footsteps back in the 1700’s and had a revolution that got rid of a monarchy and brought about democracy and liberty….although their transition was are violent than ours….but 5 years ago they took upon themselves to go to Mali to fight terrorists and now they are stuck…or so it would seem…..

In a recent editorial in Le Monde, French journalist Christophe Ayad draws disturbing parallels between the French military operations in Mali — which will reach their five-year mark in January — and America’s involvement in Afghanistan. At first glance the comparison is compelling, and in some important ways, accurate. Yet these two interventions present some fundamental differences that make the Afghanistan case likely more intractable than Mali’s, and give reason for optimism in France.

Ayad’s argument relates to the course of the wars and the apparent bind in which the American and French militaries now find themselves. Ayad observes that in both cases a lightning offensive gave way to a grinding counter-insurgency. In neither case can one now discern an alternative to continuing indefinitely to pay in blood and treasure to prop up governments that frequently act in ways contrary to good sense or good strategy. One can, in fact, blame those governments, as many critics do, but Ayad insists on Western militaries’ fundamental inability to do what they’re being asked to do in countries like Afghanistan and Mali. They have, he argues, neither “the mandate, the vocation, nor, finally, the qualifications for reconstructing the States in which they are intervening.” They “no longer know what to do” and have to choose between hunkering down in bunkers to prevent useless losses while becoming an army of occupation, or conducting raids to intimidate the enemy but risk accidents and ambushes like that which took the life lives of four American soldiers in Niger in October. Winning “hearts and minds” through civil-military engagements is supposed to be a third option, but, Ayad asserts, this is not really the job of soldiers, “as we saw in Afghanistan, where dozens of billions of dollars were spent for nothing.”

https://warontherocks.com/2017/12/mali-is-frances-afghanistan-but-with-a-difference/

Hopefully the French will not have to endure the decades of war….they did that back in the 50-650’s and it ended their overseas colonies for good.

That be it for me and my pen…..the that writes moves on and so shall I…..see you guys tomorrow hopefully it will be better day….chuq

19th Nervous Breakdown

As much as I would like to put the Stones on for this post it is actually about Fearless Fosdick, the president.

We all know about his Tweeting propensity, right? Hopefully I do not have to go back the last 10 months for that would be too much to ask of an aging old professor with health issues…tee hee….wink.

We know whether you are a supporter or like me a detractor that when something that is aimed at him and he takes offense he does what any 7 year old do….he lashes out….only he uses Twitter to bully the people and events that pisses him off.

Luckily for my reader I am not going to subject you to ever mindless rambling brain fart Fearless Fosdick has put on Twitter….(you are welcome)…..no the nervous breakdown I am writing about is the one to come.

By now even if the reader has been in seclusion in a cave they have heard about the event where Flynn has rolled over and is cooperating with Mueller on this investigation that according to Trump-ites is nothing more than a witch hunt….I bring this up because it appears that several White House biggies are the center of the investigation now (names withheld to avoid Right wing trolls)……

Any way you cut it Trump is losing it…..his Tweets are telling of his mental stability or the lack thereof……personally I think that the pressure of the office has finally starting working on what little sanity he had left….I mean after a lifetime of lying you ass off has to take a toll.

But when we say that someone is lying, we presume that they know they’re lying. That’s what distinguishes the “lie” from the “falsehood” or the “untruth.” You can unwittingly tell a falsehood, but if you lie it means you knew what you were doing. Or to quote the philosopher George Costanza, “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

And Fearless Fosdick believes everything that he Tweets about regardless of the evidence otherwise. And then there are the people that worship the very ground he walks on….old white guys, rednecks, Nazs, well you get the idea….these gullible people will voluntarily follow this asshole to Hell believing every word he utters.

All that aside…..Fearless is about due for a major meltdown and if this investigation gets too close I expect to see him go off the rail….but will the Congress (the pack of cowards) do anything to protect the country from a madman? My guess is no that would r4equire a backbone and none I have witnessed seem to possess that one simple tool for governing.

So the babbling douche will be our president until something like Hell freezing occurs….without the Congress who will still be standing around patting themselves on the back for giving the nation the largest monetary theft in like….EVER!

So if the madman from NYC remains president until 2020 will he be re-elected?

I say NO because he will choose not to run in 2020 for re-election. Why?

He had got everything that he could for his outside businesses from the Congress….No need for him to put up with the MSM in a re-election bid The country will be free of Fearless Fosdick and the criminals in the White House….now the US will set about electing the next bastard that will screw them all over again.

The Terrible Shadow That Was World War One

We are in the middle of the anniversary of World War One….it means more to Europe than to to the US but it should not…..a war that changed the world forever and the way we fight wars.

The carnage was something that can hardly be imagined and the loss of property and innocent lives is stuff nightmares are made of…….

World War One was a terrible shadow that descended unto the continent of Europe……

November 11, 2008, marks the ninetieth anniversary of the end of one of the most cataclysmic events of human history, the First World War. At 11:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918, the guns that had been decimating soldiers for more than four years fell silent. Almost 10 million soldiers lay dead. Large areas of Europe, Asia, and Africa were scarred with craters produced by artillery and mines, and trenches dug by millions of soldiers. In Winston Churchill’s memorable words, “All the horrors of all the ages were brought together, and not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them.”¹

The physical carnage produced by the war, however, paled in comparison to the moral and political carnage that the war created and that shaped the rest of the twentieth century. The American diplomat and historian George F. Kennan rightly called the First World War the “seminal catastrophe” of the twentieth century. It marked the great divide between the old world and its religious and politically conservative values and customs and the new world, described so perceptively by the British historian Paul Johnson as “a world adrift, having left its moorings in traditional law and morality.”²

http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2008/1012/comm/sempa_wwi.html

This war should be studied in finite detail so that the world does not ever make that mistake again…..sad it did just a mere 30 years later with World War Two……sadly NOTHING was learned from the carnage of World War one.

The “Socialists” Are Coming

Have you had enough of that pig Judge Roy Moore? Me too. He lost and he will not now go away…..

So let’s talk about something completely different.

Fearless Fosdick as president is it possible that the American Left can be resurrected?

“Where is the leftwing when we need it” is a question I have asked at times. Some of my readers who confuse the left with Antifa and Identity politics have been confused by my question. Why, they ask, do I want more Antifa thugs and Identity Politics hatred of white people?

The answer is that Antifa and Identity Politics are the antithesis of the left. The real left is pro-working class, pro all of the working class, all races, genders, sexual preferences. Identity Politics splinters the working class and destroys the cohesiveness of the working class, thereby making it easier for exploiters to exploit. Antifa aids in this process by focusing hatred on whites by accusing only whites of racism.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/can-the-american-left-be-resurrected/5621911

Oh No….those dreaded “commies” from years gone by are making in-roads….what to do? What to do?

Last summer, two authors asked Fast Company readers a simple question: “Are you ready to consider that capitalism is the real problem?”

For millennials, the answer seems to be increasingly yes. “A lot of young people don’t believe in it anymore,” Ana Garcia, a college junior, told the Wall Street Journal in a recent article on the topic. “We don’t trust capitalism because we don’t see ourselves getting ahead.”

A 2016 poll by the Harvard Institute of Politics found that just 19% of Americans aged 18 to 29 identified themselves as capitalists; only 42% claimed they supported the economic system. Another Harvard poll, released on December 5, found that two-thirds of that same age group is fearful for the future of the country. Just 14% think we’re headed in the right direction.

https://www.fastcompany.com/40505017/young-people-are-really-over-capitalism

Recent elections have found several DSA members as winning various positions in their local regions…giving one moron in the GOP to say that radical Marxists were coming to town….first, a DSA member is not and has never been a Marxist……two how many of my readers even know what the Democratic Socialists stand for?

But since I would imagine not many…allow me to help out…..

Many Americans are starting to look beyond the two parties for representation….and some have found the DSA as a choice to represent them…..

Americans in large numbers are becoming puzzled and agitated. Every day newspaper headlines blare out that the US is in trouble, together with our Western free market allies. The government doesn’t work as political divisiveness freezes decision-making. The extent of inequality is “obscene,” to borrow an oft-used description by Bernie Sanders. The elected president comes over as an egomaniac and buffoon. The middle class is in continuing decline, struggling to survive through multiple jobs. The infrastructure is decaying and CEOs dismantle industry, transporting production to more profitable global domains. Racism abounds, punctuated by recurring protests against police brutality. Workers face unemployment, declining wages, reduced benefits, and weakened unions to fight their cause. Homelessness is a continuing, intractable shame. All around us students agonize about being able to afford college and old people worry about whether Social Security will hold firm for them.

https://www.laprogressive.com/democratic-socialist-alternative/

I have been saying that the voter should look at all political parties instead of hanging onto the two party system….move beyond the rich ruling class and find those people that truly want to represent the people and not their donors.

Finally, someone was listening…..and with good reason….at least according to Noam Chomsky…….

We live in an age of illegitimate neoliberal hegemony and soaring political uncertainty. The evidence is all around: citizen disillusionment over mainstream political parties and the traditional conservative-liberal divide, massive inequality, the rise of the “alt-right,” and growing resistance to Trumpism and financial capitalism.

Yes, the present age is full of contradictions of every type and variety, and this is something that makes the goals and aims of the left for the reordering of society along the lines of a true democratic polity and in accordance with the vision of a socialist reorganization of the economy more challenging than ever before.

In this context, the interview below, with Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin, which appeared originally in Truthout in three separate parts, seeks to provide theoretical and practical guidance to the most pressing social, economic and political issues facing the United States today.

https://www.alternet.org/human-rights/imagining-new-social-order-noam-chomsky-and-robert-pollin-conversation

After 40 years of activism and finally someone is listening……what took you guys so long?

But can the true Left” be resurrected? (I know this is a dupe post….it is here for effect)………

“Where is the leftwing when we need it” is a question I have asked at times. Some of my readers who confuse the left with Antifa and Identity politics have been confused by my question. Why, they ask, do I want more Antifa thugs and Identity Politics hatred of white people?

The answer is that Antifa and Identity Politics are the antithesis of the left. The real left is pro-working class, pro all of the working class, all races, genders, sexual preferences. Identity Politics splinters the working class and destroys the cohesiveness of the working class, thereby making it easier for exploiters to exploit. Antifa aids in this process by focusing hatred on whites by accusing only whites of racism.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/can-the-american-left-be-resurrected/5621911

I can hope that before I expire the Left will find its place in American society and politics…..it will be refreshing to have a true political debate on issues and policies.

Is This Country Addicted To War?

Almost every time the president speaks on foreign affairs he basically threatens someone.

After listening to Fearless Fosdick I had a thought……is this country addicted? Well we are addicted to crappy news coverage……and I think we are addicted to war….why else would we be fighting in so many countries……but someone agrees with me…….

It’s been going on for so many years – Predators cruising, looking for their prey. Some attention has since been paid to the phenomenon and to the devastating effect their actions have had on their victims, but it hasn’t really mattered. The predation has only spread.

Oh, before I go any further, let me clear up one possible bit of confusion. I’m not talking about Charlie Rose, Roy Moore, Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, or any of that crew of predators. I’m talking about America’s robotic killers, the drones that long ago were grimly named Predators (retired this year) and their more advanced cousins, the Reapers (as in Grim…), who have taken a once-illegal American activity, political assassination, and made it the well-respected law of the land and increasingly of huge swaths of the globe.

http://original.antiwar.com/andrew-bacevich/2017/12/10/country-addicted-war/

Let me say here that I am anti-war and have been since 1972…….I truly believe that we are addicted to war…..I have seen that another question was asked by the American Conservative……who among us would support an indefensible war?

The war on Yemen has de facto support from both parties in Washington and has been enabled reliably by both the Obama and Trump administrations, but very few people seem willing to defend that policy publicly. Except for occasionally publishing propaganda pieces by Saudi government representatives, the reliably hawkish Wall Street Journal editorial page says virtually nothing on the subject. There is not much of the usual cheerleading that we are used to seeing when a U.S. client government is waging an unjust war on its neighbors. The war is simply ignored here in the U.S. for the most part, and its tacit supporters are no exception. It is understandable that there would be few people interested in publicly trying to defend the indefensible, but it is still somewhat remarkable that a war that no one can honestly justify commands so much automatic backing.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/who-would-support-an-indefensible-war/

To my chagrin I find myself agreeing with a lot of what the American Conservative magazine has to say…..never did I think that was possible in the past……but these days they are making some outstanding observations…..like the most recent article in the magazine…….

“We will never accept Russia’s occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea,” declaimed Rex Tillerson last week in Vienna.

“Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns full control of the peninsula to Ukraine.”

Tillerson’s principled rejection of the seizure of land by military force—“never accept”—came just one day after President Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and pledged to move our embassy there.

How did Israel gain title to East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights? Invasion, occupation, colonization, annexation.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/what-should-we-fight-for/

While Buchanan writes little that I agree with I do however like what he wrote in the above article…..

Remembering Sandy Hook

My Closing Thought–14Dec17!

This week we remember the heinous attack on the school at Sandy Hook…..that unless you are a mental midget and fall for the crap that the killings never happened that the deaths were nothing more than actors……it is silly!

A video depicting a local news broadcast about a school shooting that has yet to occur is the latest public service announcement created by Sandy Hook Promise to help bring awareness to the warning signs often displayed by people who are at risk of hurting themselves or others.

In the minute-long video, which was released just days before the fifth anniversary of the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, a reporter interviews people about “tomorrow’s shooting” involving a 15-year-old boy who kills four students and two adults before committing suicide.

Classmates, teachers and parents all reveal warning signs, including bullying, social media threats and suspicious comments made by the shooter that should have alerted them that something was wrong.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sandy-hook-parents-release-chilling-psa-ahead-of-anniversary-of-deadly-newtown-shooting/

Please take a moment for reflection on this act of terror and the deaths of children………And take a moment of silence for their memories…..

Foreign Policy Round-Up–Dec2017

I realize that it is that time of year where people like to think of peace and good will toward men….well that is not happening…..while we are wishing people the best of the season the rest of the world is going to crap…..so you feelings of goodwill mean nothing in the larger scheme of things.

Let me give you the rundown of what is happening during your lapse into a joyous season……..

1–ISIS-AQ Conflict……

After a more than four-year absence, Jund al-Islam (JAI) has returned to the forefront in Sinai, marking a new chapter in the fierce conflict between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (Daesh, ISIL, ISIS). The group published an audio recording in which it took credit for an attack targeting ISIS affiliates in Sinai known as Wilayat Sinai (WS). Jund al-Islam deemed them Kharitjites or those that defected from the group, and demanded that WS leaders turn themselves in. This attack raises many questions related to the sudden timing of Jund al-Islam’s emergence, its relationship with al-Qaeda, and the likely impact of the renewal of old hostilities between Wilayat Sinai and Jund al-Islam.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/11/30/a_new_chapter_in_the_conflict_between_al-qaeda_and_isis_112700.html

Libya has not made the news lately….let me catch you up……….

When the Obama administration led a 2011 NATO military intervention on behalf of rebels seeking to overthrow Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi, there was considerable optimism that the move would produce a much better country. Although U.S. officials and their media cheerleaders acknowledged that significant challenges remained for a post-Qaddafi Libya, they argued that the outcome could scarcely be worse than the oppressive status quo. Events over the past six years have proven their assumptions spectacularly wrong. Libya is now a cauldron of turmoil and Islamic radicalism.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/libya-failed-state-its-americas-fault-23325

Syria has some dealings with the peace process and as usual the US is not there…..

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Sochi on Tuesday to discuss efforts to end the Syrian civil war. The presidents of Iran and Turkey are scheduled to meet Putin on Wednesday as Russia promises to scale back its military presence in Syria and push for a diplomatic solution.

https://www.usip.org/publications/2017/11/will-russian-peace-efforts-pay-syria

But wait there is more……

As 2017 comes to a close, the warring parties in Syria are moving towards reconciliation—but the U.S. is not among them.

The Islamic State is all but defeated, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies are now closing in on the few remaining pockets occupied by other extremists, and Iranians, Russians, and Turks are mapping out the peace to come.

Then there’s America. Donald Trump may have hinted at changes up his sleeve, but he’s treading the same tired path as his predecessor on Syria.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/in-syria-mideast-peacemaking-is-no-longer-made-in-america/

The aftershocks of the combat deaths of four U.S. special operations soldiers in Niger on Oct. 4 are still shaking the Pentagon two months later.

The deaths prompted a familiar refrain from the American public: “Why are we there?” This expected, if fair, question reminds us of the precisely opposite question asked about Afghanistan after the shock of 9/11: “Why aren’t we there?”

To be there or not to be there? Either way you answer, you’ll find risk.

The devastating ambush in west Niger occurred on the 24th anniversary of another bloody day in modern military history. The Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia occurred on the third and fourth day of October 1993, leaving 18 American soldiers dead and 73 wounded. This ambush also triggered surprise, then outrage, then investigation — the “why are we there?” inquiry. As the grim tactical details of this mission-gone-bad come to light, a broader strategic question looms: Where exactly does the United States need to project power abroad to prevent strategic surprise?

https://warontherocks.com/2017/12/playing-zone-defense-niger-risk-vs-reward-remote-operations/

Now to Afghanistan……

President Ashraf Ghani looks set to mobilize a new 20,000-strong militia to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. The story of militias loyal to his former running mate and current vice-president, Abdul Rashid Dostum, should give him pause. Many of Dostum’s former commanders, who were armed to fight the Taliban, are now joining both the Islamic State and the Taliban.

Such defections are hardly the exception. Militias, once mobilized, are hard to disarm. When resources dwindle, they often seek new patrons and switch sides. By mobilizing a new force Ghani risks reinforcing, over time, the ranks of the very enemy he hopes to defeat. Today’s allies risk becoming tomorrow’s insurgents.

https://warontherocks.com/2017/12/afghanistan-todays-pro-government-militias-tomorrows-insurgents/

There is so much more….there is always more……to be continued in another post…..chuq

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: December 2017