Month: May 2018

Memorial Day–2018

Closing Thought–28May18

Today is the day set aside to remember our dead from the many wars we have fought…..I take this opportunity to tell my readers a little something of myself and my service.

I served 2 and half years in Southeast Asia…..most of that time I was a LRRP…..a recon patrol for the 9th Infantry Division Mekong Delta, Republic of South Vietnam……the US Army in their infinite wisdom decided that the LRRPs were so successful that they would incorporate them into the 75th Regt the Rangers so from that point on the LRRPs are wrapped up with the history of the Rangers…but this idea was a bad one (my opinion)…..LRRPs worked in 4, 5 or 6 man teams and when the Rangers took over they wanted 8 man teams…got a lot of LRRPs killed because the team dynamic is different from 6 and 8 members……I will die a LRRP I did not want to be a Ranger in 1968 and that has not changed today….I do not care about the “coolness” of the Rangers…I [prefer to die a LRRP.

For those people that are not sure about LRRPs there is a documentary made on us…it tells our story well…..

Below is the photo of the gun I carried in Vietnam…..a .45 cal “Burp Gun”….since I carried a .45 pistol and the Burp was .45 I had to carry only one ammo….saved time and space on long missions.

Everyone please take a moment to remember our fallen countrymen in our many wars…..

This will be my only post today for I have a family I will spend time with……

Peace Out!

The Other P-38

It is Sunday and we are in the middle of celebrating Memorial Day so I thought since I am a history geek I would write about World War Two……

During that war there were couple P-38’s of distinction……

First, the P-38 Lightening from Lockheed…….

It was billed as a “Pursuit” plane….in today’s lingo that would be a fighter/bomber……and during the war it was a go to plane in the European as well as Pacific theaters.

Second P-38 comes from Germany……

It was a pistol from the Walther Guns company and issued during World War Two….

Finally, the P-38 that I am referring to is the piece of equipment that every soldier knew how to operate from WW2 to Vietnam……

 

Some us old farts still have one of them in our mementos……

Far down on the list of important inventions essential to victory in World War II is a modest gadget built of stamped metal called the GI Pocket Can Opener—commonly known as the P-38—which was used by American troops in the field to sever the lids off combat rations. Despite its small stature and relative obscurity, many consider it to be the most perfect tool ever developed by the U.S. Army.

Simple in design, efficient in use, and diverse in application, the P-38 was an ideal complement to the canned meat and bread components contained in C-Rations, a staple of military feeding for more than four decades. The little two-piece hinged device constructed of hardened steel never seemed to break, never lost its edge, and its rugged versatility always provided a quick solution in situations other than its original intent. Soldiers regarded the P-38 as their personal, government-issued Jack-of-all-trades.

“When we had C-Rations, the P-38 was your access to food, making it the hierarchy of needs,” retired Army Colonel Paul Baerman told the Army Times. “Then soldiers discovered it was an extremely simple, lightweight, multipurpose tool. I think in warfare the simpler something is and the easier access it has, the more you’re going to use it. The P-38 had all of those things going for it.”

http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/the-other-p-38/

This is a piece of history that is slowly being lost to innovation but deserves its place in the memories of our troops.

Have a good Sunday……be well be safe…..chuq

What Causes Your Bad Moods?

As the weekend begins let us talk about something that most of us consider from time to time…….the things we eat……

These days it seems that no matter what your ailment it can all come down to your diet or your choice of foods…..some people spend every waking minute searching for the perfect diet or foods…..

Ever have one of those days where no matter what you attempt your mood slides into a bad place….ever wonder what could cause such a slide?

There’s a reason our stomachs are sometimes called our second brains. Our gut produces about 90% of our serotonin, the chemical responsible for making us feel good. So in an effort to stay our calm, upbeat selves, we chatted with Rachel Kelly, mental health advocate and author of “The Happiness Diet” (in stores and online September 26), to find out which foods might be putting us in a bad mood. (Et tu, fries?)

https://www.businessinsider.com/these-foods-are-scientifically-proven-to-put-you-in-a-bad-mood-2018-5

They keep saying we are what we eat……in this case we are bad moods.

“Fast Foodies Know The Deal”

The Memorial Day festivities will be slow for we have a tropical depression dumping lots of rain on my region….I hope everyone has a good few days and please take a moment to remember those that died in service of their country.

Have a day…..chuq

OMG! Will She Ever Shut Up?

Closing Thought–25May18

Another school shooting…..and few seem to care…..what a great country.

Not a month goes by that there is not yet another story about Hillary Clinton…..for Christ sake she lost the election and we are still have to relive the damn thing through her eyes.

I speeches since the voting has has blamed damn near everybody but Miss Piggy for her loss….that is everybody but the one person she should blame….herself.

Her newest excuse was an age old enemy of state….”socialists”…..

Hillary Clinton is incapable of coming to terms with her loss and now finds fault with greedy capitalists who are turning young people into socialists, as Paul Street explains.

Hillary Clinton’s take on “what happened” in the 2016 election is a running tale of victimization. She was the casualty of FBI Director James Comey and of Vladimir Putin and WikiLeaks. She was unjustly loathed by that “basket” of racist, sexist, nativist, and homophobic “deplorables” that is supposedly the American “heartland,” white working-class and rural population – people she recently painted (at an elite globalist gathering in Mumbai, India) as a bunch of “pessimistic,” slow-witted and retrograde losers. She was victimized by Bernie Sanders, who (Hillary complained) wasn’t even a “real Democrat” but had the unmitigated chutzpah to let his primary campaign challenge her prearranged coronation as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.

Never mind the series of stupid, arrogant, and largely unforced errors that crippled her uninspiring and policy-bereft insider campaign that was under her command. And never mind her own epic unpopularity before and during the campaign – disapproval earned over her many years of functioning as a cold and transparently elitist Establishment agent of the wealthy corporate and financial Few.

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/05/20/hillary-clinton-is-now-a-victim-of-socialists/

She needs to buck up and place the blame where blame is due….her campaign!

Democrats need to move past her whining….if they are ever to gain the seat of power again they need to find a message and let the scapegoating die.

One more Clinton piece of crap……

he new Wikileaks release shows the then Secretary of State ordering a war in Syria in order to overthrow the government and oust President Assad, claiming it was the “best way to help Israel”.

“The best way to help Israel deal with Iran’s growing nuclear capability is to help the people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad,” Clinton forthrightly starts off by saying.

Even though all US intelligence reports had long dismissed Iran’s “atom bomb” program as a hoax (a conclusion supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency), Clinton continues to use these lies to “justify” destroying Syria in the name of Israel.

She specifically links Iran’s mythical atom bomb program to Syria because, she says, Iran’s “atom bomb” program threatens Israel’s “monopoly” on nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

If Iran were to acquire a nuclear weapon, Clinton asserts, this would allow Syria (and other “adversaries of Israel” such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt) to “go nuclear as well,” all of which would threaten Israel’s interests.

clinton-email-syria-israel

Prime example on our foreign policy……it is protect Israel at all costs……

Time for Hillary to just slide off into the dust bin of history.

As The Forces Gather

I have been watching the Iranian/Israel/Saudi/US drama play out and I read something that should make every American think and then shudder at the possibility…..

TomDispatch regular Michael Klare points out, we seem to be on a path to a Third Gulf War. Once again, Iran is the enemy. Once again, as in 2003, a president is surrounded by bellicose advisers intent on just such a war and looking for the right excuse to launch it. And if this doesn’t seem eerily repetitive to you, well, what can I say – except that this little history gives grim new meaning to the adage, often credited to philosopher George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” ~ Tom

https://original.antiwar.com/Michael_Klare/2018/05/13/gearing-up-for-the-third-gulf-war/

SecState Pompeo is doing what a good warmonger would do….thumping his chest like a crazed primate…..

In a speech at the right-wing Heritage Foundation on Monday that critics said should put to rest all lingering illusions that the Trump White House wants anything other than regime change in Iran, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo outlined a “wildly unrealistic” list of demands that Iran must meet if it wants nuclear talks with America and warned that the U.S. will “crush” Tehran with sanctions if it doesn’t comply.

“Pompeo has not outlined a strategy, but rather a grab bag of wishful thinking that can only be interpreted as a call for regime change in Iran,” Suzanne Maloney, a senior fellow at the Brookings Center for Middle East Policy, wrote on Twitter in response to the secretary of state’s remarks. “This speech could have been given word-for-word by [national security adviser John] Bolton.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/05/21/iraq-war-playbook-returns-pompeo-replaces-diplomacy-threat-crush-iran

I fear for our young…we are on the road to repeating the mistake of 2003 and the invasion of Iraq and then the occupation that lead to even more destruction and deaths……

“Cry Havoc And Release The Dogs Of War”

The War Of Words

It seems they is all we have going on in this country these days…all the he said, he said…..the silly back and forth while this country slides into yet another abyss…..the trade war is the newest “art of the deal”…….the bluster is good but is any of it true?

President Trump on Monday made the case that his White House is righting years of wrong in regard to China. Beijing “has agreed to buy massive amounts of ADDITIONAL Farm/Agricultural Products – would be one of the best things to happen to our farmers in many years!” he wrote. “On China, Barriers and Tariffs to come down for first time,” went another. And a third took aim at Democrats. “I ask Senator Chuck Schumer, why didn’t President Obama & the Democrats do something about Trade with China, including Theft of Intellectual Property etc.? They did NOTHING! With that being said, Chuck & I have long agreed on this issue! Fair Trade, plus, with China will happen!” The tweets follow days of negotiations between the two nations, though even some of Trump’s supporters are worried that China is getting the upper hand. Details:

  • Dueling statements: Treasury chief Steven Mnuchin said Sunday that the US was “putting the trade war on hold” and ditching the idea of tariffs while talks continue. However, Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer made a point to say that tariffs were still an important tool to “protect our technology.” The Wall Street Journal sees these as “markedly different positions,” adding that the statements punctuate days of negotiations “with a question mark.”
  • China winning? An analysis by Heather Long at the Washington Postasserts that China is winning the trade fight, at least so far. The White House, for example, has been demanding that China reduce the United States’ trade deficit with Beijing by at least $200 billion, but no such specifics were evident in a “noticeably vague” joint statement issued by the nations over the weekend. Also, China may have agreed to buy more US energy and farm products, “but it was almost certain that the Chinese were going to buy more of that stuff anyway.”
  • Criticism: Business Insider rounds up criticism of the weekend developments from Trump allies including Lou Dobbs of Fox Business (“US must export like a superpower not an agrarian developing nation half our size!” he wrote) and former steel industry CEO Dan DiMicco (“Did #President just blink?” he wrote. “China & friends appear 2 be carrying the day.”) Meanwhile, Marco Rubio states flatly that China “is winning the negotiations.”
  • What’s next: With the trade war “on hold,” CNNMoney looks at the big questions still to be answered in ongoing talks, including whether Beijing will seriously address US allegations of technology theft.
  • Biggest threat? A post at Axios argues that China is “thinking long term” with a global strategy, unlike the US. “China is pouring time, money, infrastructure and trade into every continent, after promising to fill the global void created by Trump’s America First,” writes Jim VandeHei, who also faults Congress for having short-term vision. Xi Jinping is positioning China to dominate most of the world’s important industries in the decade to come.

So the “art of the deal” is put on hold while the words continue to fly……is this something learned in the Wharton School?

Kiss That Nobel Good-Bye

Closing Thought–24May18

Have you heard the news today?

First there was the chest thumping then there were the kind words of approval then there was the news that North Korea and US would sit down to a much needed summit……Trump would meet Kim……

North Korea is destroying their nuke test site……

North Korea carried out what it said is the demolition of its nuclear test site Thursday, setting off a series of explosions over several hours in the presence of foreign journalists. The explosions at the nuclear test site deep in the mountains of the North’s sparsely populated northeast were centered on three tunnels into the underground site and a number of observation towers in the surrounding area, reports the AP. The planned closing was previously announced by Kim Jong Un ahead of his planned summit with President Trump next month. Sky News correspondent Tom Cheshire was on hand, and described it thusly: “We hiked up into the mountains and watched the detonation from about 500 meters away. … There was a huge explosion, you could feel it. Dust came at you, the heat came at you. It was extremely loud.”

The North’s decision to close the Punggye-ri nuclear test site has generally been seen as a welcome gesture by Kim to set a positive tone ahead of the summit. Even so, it is not an irreversible move and would need to be followed by many more significant measures to meet Trump’s demands for real denuclearization. By bringing in the foreign media, mainly television networks, the North is apparently hoping to have images of the closing—including explosions to collapse tunnel entrances—broadcast around the world. The group included an AP television crew. The North did not invite international inspectors to the ceremony, which limits its value as a serious concession.

…….and then there were words that put the summit in jeopardy and finally the news came out….the summit has been axed!

Hours after North Korea announced it had blown up its nuclear test site, news of something else blowing up. The White House on Thursday released a letter from President Trump to Kim Jong Un canceling the planned June 12 summit in Singapore. It reads in part: “Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting. Therefore, please let this letter serve to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world, will not take place.”

The statement the president references came from senior North Korean official Choe Son Hui, who called Mike Pence a “political dummy” for comparing North Korea to Libya in the context of denuclearization and warned Pyongyang wouldn’t “beg” for dialogue. CNN’s sources tell it the statement “infuriated” Trump and his team, specifically the portion about Pence. “You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used,” Trump continued in the letter.

Odd…they eliminate their reactor site and then eliminate the summit…..this is an odd occurrence….

One thing we can say for sure…..Trump can kiss the Nobel Peace Prize good-bye…….after all the work that his minions in Congress did to try and force the committee to award the prize to Trump…..

That Famous Midnight Ride

Yep I am a student of history and because of that interest I do have a tendency to force feed history to my readers.  I love me some history.

When I was in college I thought about a paper on Paul Revere and his famous ride……but instead I did a paper on the writing of the DoI and my theory on who actually wrote the document.

Then recently I read an article about Uncle Paul and his famous ride.

In the spring of 1860, Harvard professor and well-regarded romantic poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow began working on a poem about an otherwise obscure messenger ride by American patriot Paul Revere on the evening of April 18-19, 1775. Longfellow hoped to use the story of Paul Revere’s ride as a vehicle to warn the American Union that it was in danger of disintegrating (which it was). Even though there is good evidence that Longfellow knew the real story of Revere’s ride (from Paul Revere’s 1798 letter to Dr. Jeremy Belknap of the Massachusetts Historical Society, published in a magazine Longfellow had almost certainly read), Longfellow chose to simplify and re-arrange parts of the story in the interests of creating a better and more effective poem. In particular, Longfellow reversed the story of the famous signal lanterns hung in Christ Church tower to indicate that British troops had left Boston. According to Longfellow, Paul Revere was waiting “booted and spurred” in Charlestown across the river from Boston for the signal, whereas in fact Revere was still in Boston when the signals were shown. The signals were not “for” Paul Revere, but “from” Paul Revere to the Sons of Liberty in Charlestown, because Revere was apprehensive that he would be prevented from leaving Boston.

https://www.biography.com/news/paul-reveres-ride-facts

I did a little research for the paper that I wanted to write and tried to find some info that Paul might be a Brit spy…..he did not complete his ride for he was stopped by the British before he got too far….is it possible that he passed on info to them about Concorde and such?

The Lie Of Victimhood

The move is complete and the violence will continue….but there is more to this than the embassy…..

Unarmed civilians are being shot and maimed by an army that if it occurred elsewhere there would be a world uproar…..and yet it has been a whimper…..the US has made sure that Israel is protected…and yet this same scenario was playing out in Libya and we know how that turned out…..

The United States has used its veto power at the UN Security Council to block a Monday resolution calling for an independent probe into the killing of scores of Palestinian protesters this week along the Gaza Strip border. The protesters were killed by Israeli forces.

It is very common for the US to use its veto power to protect Israel from any UN Security Council repercussions for its mistreatment of the Palestinians. US Ambassador Nikki Haley praised Israel over the killings, saying they’d not only shown “restraint” in only killing 61, but had shown more restraint than any other country on the planet would’ve in the face of the demonstration.

Haley further claimed that the blame should really fall on the Iranian government, on the grounds that the protesters were encouraged by the Hamas movement, and Iran has backed the Hamas movement in the past.

Haley mostly sought to downplay the links between the massacre and the US opening its new embassy in Jerusalem. It is fair to suggest that the two events aren’t wholly connected, as the protest was organized for Nakba Day. It is impossible not to notice that the US made the decision to open the Israeli Embassy on Nakba Day, however, despite knowing it would be seen as yet another insult to the Palestinians.

(antiwar.com)

Restraint my ass!  This is typical bullshit from a country that allows war crimes to go unchecked……

The US media is just as guilty as Haley in this whitewashing of the deaths of civilians……

Typical of the mindset of corporate media reporting on what happened in Gaza on Monday as Israeli soldiers killed more than 50 protesting Palestinians, is this tweet from CNN. It says: “Death toll rises to at least 52 people during clashes along the border fence between Israel and Gaza, Palestinian officials say. More than 2,400 people have been injured.” CNN’s new slogan is “#FactsFirst.”

Adam Johnson, who writes for the media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, responded to CNN with a tweet of his own:

“This one’s got it all:

  • ‘death toll rises’ — no one was killed and no one specific party did the killing, the death toll just mysteriously ‘rises’
  • ‘clashes’ — launders all power asymmetry
  • ‘2,400 people have been injured’ — all 2,400 are Palestinian but lets go with ‘people’.”

Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, said on his blog that he did a Google News search for the word “massacre” and found not one reference to Gaza.

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/05/14/u-s-media-whitewashes-gaza-massacre/

And American journalist keep pushing the “victim” card for Israel….it is the biggest lie we have these days…..

The New York Times has always had a double standard on human rights, but they usually aren’t very open about it.  They condemn Russian bombing as horrible war crimes, but criticize similar US bombing as mistakes and pretty much ignore Israeli bombing of Gaza. But they don’t come right out and say that killing is good or that it is cruel to be kind and kind to be cruel and Palestinians need to be shot for their own good.

Until now.

Columnist Shmuel Rosner says essentially this, and the Times published him three days ago: “Israel Needs to Protect Its Borders. By Any Means Necessary.”

http://mondoweiss.net/2018/05/columnist-palestinian-palestinians/

If the US foreign policy was at all consistent then we would do as we did in Libya…..attack and destroy for threatening civilians……

The Syrian civil war, we have been told, began as part of the Arab Spring and really took hold when Syrian government forces allegedly opened fire on protesters across the country in early 2011. This pattern of indiscriminate violent behavior against civilians has been a talking point in the western media’s regime-change narrative. The media often goes so far as to claim that the government led by Bashar al-Assad has lost all legitimacy.

What then, should we make of Israel’s decision to open fire on protesters in the Gaza Strip this past week, killing over 60 protesters and wounding 2,700 more in the process? According to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Israel is not an aggressor at all but a country that has shown considerable “restraint” in its use of force. Despite the claim that most of the dead were Hamas members, the fact that 2,700 people were injured suggests Israel deployed lethal force upon thousands of protesters — not exactly what comes to mind when one thinks of the word “restraint.” Even purposely shooting one unarmed protester seems to contradict everything we are supposed to believe about human rights and democracy.

http://theantimedia.com/us-bombing-israel/

Our Foreign Policy has never been consistent and our defense of the innocents in this world has become a joke that the whole world sees for what it is….a goddamn lie!

A New Iranian Nuke Deal?

Yes there is a new list of demands from the Trump crazies that Iran MUST adhere to for the deal to go back into effect…and there are some doozeys……..

Now that the US has withdrawn from the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, what would it take to strike a new deal? A lot, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo revealed Monday in a speech outlining US demands, reports the Wall Street Journal, the AP, CNN, and Al Jazeera. Pompeo listed 12 things Iran must do, including:

  • Stop the enrichment of all uranium
  • Allow “unqualified access” to all nuclear sites
  • Withdraw all forces from Syria
  • Release all US citizens in custody
  • Stop its threats to destroy Israel
  • Halt its support for militant groups in the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon
  • Declare all previous efforts to build a nuclear weapon

“Relief from sanctions will come only when we see tangible, demonstrated, and sustained shifts in Tehran’s policies,” said Pompeo in a speech at the Heritage Foundation. “We acknowledge Iran’s right to defend its people. But not its actions which jeopardize the world’s citizens.” The gist of coverage from the above sources suggests that the odds of Iran agreeing to the demands are virtually nonexistent. “There is such an enormous trust deficit between the US and Iran that Iranian leaders are likely to really shrug this off as yet more angry rhetoric coming from the Trump White House,” per Al Jazeera.

Tell me would the US accept these conditions……these are more to protect Israel than to end nuclear dreams.  Read Pompeo’s words it is that superiority thing…..”do as we say not as we do” sort of thing.

Personally I think his bluster will bite him in the butt….and I am not alone……

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speech on new sanctions on Iran lays out a wide range of Iranian behavior he would like to change, and specified harsh US financial sanctions as his instrument.

Pompeo, a Kansas oil man backed by the Koch brothers, is just a former congressman and a virulent Christian fundamentalist with white nationalist tendencies. He knows little about the world and is among the worst prepared secretaries of state in American history. He also knows nothing about the history of the region.

Unilateral US sanctions as a means of regime change or radically changing regime behavior have a strong record of failure, especially when applied to states with pricey primary commodities like petroleum.

https://www.juancole.com/2018/05/pompeo-iran-sanctions.html

These Trump people are the least capable of leading this country than ever before……

While the US makes demands that will not be met……the EU, China and Russia are moving to save the deal that is in place now……

While previous reports have indicated that there was little interest in talking about a new nuclear deal with Iran, the withdrawal of the US from the existing deal appears to have changed things. Now, Russia, China, and the European Union are to hold talks on a major revision of the deal later this week.

This new deal would keep Iran’s requirements the same as the existing deal, but would increase the incentives guaranteed by the other powers. This is an attempt to keep Iran complying with the deal as the US ratchets up sanctions.

While the US was the one pushing for a “new” deal in the first place, the other nations have kept the US completely sidelined in these new talks. This is unsurprising, as many see the US trying to undermine any such deals.

The new deal is said to offer Iran billions of dollars in financial aid to make up for the US dishonoring the pact and withdrawing its own sanctions relief. The deal also aims to pledge international cooperation to prevent US  sanctions being enforced internationally.

(antiwar.com)

This deal be saved one way or the other….but making unrealistic demands is not the “art of the deal”.