During war there are always stories that makes one think of this or that….and for several years Saudi Arabia has been locked in conflict with its neighbor Yemen.
Saudi forces have carried out multiple attacks against Hodeidah in recent days, trying to help Yemen forces attack the vital aid port. Yet as has often been a problem with Saudi airstrikes in Yemen, their targeting seems haphazard, and as likely to just hit a bus depot full of civilians waiting to evacuate as any combatants.
Very public incidents of civilian deaths, especially egregious cases of killing children in buses, have meant a lot of patience with the Saudi war has run out. Such incidents are likely to continue to undermine what little international support the war still enjoys.
(antiwar.com)
What is it about buses that pisses the Saudis off?
…but I exp-ectI have been writing and analyzing conflict (war) for many years and in all that time I have valued the input from my readers on their thoughts and beliefs about the subject. I am fortunate enough to have several readers and visitors that have strong opinions o the matter and they do not always agree with what I have said or written…..but I find it exhilarating to have opposition for it always helps the conversation move forward.
His comment was about fighting wars the way we use to and winning them like we use to……my point is that the “big war” is no longer the way we fight……but after saying that are their still things called “Battle Lines”?
It is common in today’s wars to claim there are no battle lines, but this is only because we do not create or at the very least do not want to recognize them as such because the enemy creates them. The creation of battle lines is the intentional act of an army and is, in fact, one of its great powers. In recent years modern armies have seized territory pushing the enemy out and behind the borders of that territory. Only to then stop pursuing them and begin administering the territory they seized.
It follows then that while the army is thus occupied and unwilling to cross the existing territorial borders in pursuit of the enemy’s final destruction. It becomes an easy thing for that enemy to build a center of gravity, and from the safety of this position across the border (A battle line they created) continue the war in every facet with almost no serious risk to their operations. We’ve seen this time and time again especially in modern warfare. Just in the last century, we’ve seen it in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Columbia, and other places as well.
In other words it depends on the way war is viewed.
Personally, I view war as a use of special operating teams with massive technological superiority….but that does not mean that the conflict can be won…..take Vietnam as an example then fast forward to Afghanistan and then Iraq……technological superiority did not lead to victory….but then we need to define victory…..for “victory is more difficult art than the war” (cannot remember who said that…..just know it was not me). Keep in mind….”Victory counts for nothing if those who gain it know not what to make of it”. In the last 60 years the US is a prime example of that statement.
I believe that large scale operations are a growing thing of the past…..after the initial strike the conflict settles into a humdrum existence tit for tat confrontations.
You know most Americans have NO idea that they are being played by the media and even by Our Dear Leader…..Newspapers and social media are useful tools for these puppeteers…..
If any evidence existed to be found that Donald Trump had illegally colluded with the Russian government to rig the 2016 presidential election, that evidence would have been picked up by the sprawling surveillance networks of the US and its allies and leaked to the Washington Post before Obama left office.
Russiagate is like a mirage. From a distance it looks like a solid, tangible thing, but when you actually move in to examine it critically you find nothing but gaping plot holes, insinuation, innuendo, conflicting narratives, bizarre mental contortions to avoid acknowledging contradictory information, a few arrests for corruption and process crimes, and a lot of hot air. The whole thing has been held together by nothing but the confident-sounding assertions of pundits and politicians and sheer, mindless repetition. And, as we approach the two year mark since this president’s election, we have not seen one iota of movement toward removing him from office. The whole thing’s a lie, and the smart movers and shakers behind it are aware that it is a lie.
Think back to 2003 and the mash-up to the invasion of Iraq….the media was used to start a war and then to garner support for said war…..
Donald Trump has again stirred the wrath of his critics by charging that the media can cause wars. His opponents immediately howled that he’d launched another salvo in his ongoing campaign to vilify journalists as the “enemy of the people.” They also ridiculed his contention as factually absurd. Fox News reporter Chris Wallace bluntly asked National Security Advisor John Bolton: “What wars have we caused?” Princeton University historian and CNN analyst Julian E. Zelizer epitomized the view that Trump’s charge is unfounded with a piece in The Atlantictitled, “The Press Doesn’t Cause Wars—Presidents Do.”
Zelizer and similar critics are technically correct, of course. Media outlets have no power to launch attacks on foreign countries or order U.S. troops into combat. But that view is much too narrow. As Zelizer himself admits, the new media have considerable ability to influence public opinion. Such a capacity to shape the overall narrative is not a trivial power. An irresponsible press can, and has, whipped up public sentiment in favor of military actions that subsequent evidence indicated were unnecessary and even immoral.
Since we elected Our Dear Leader last November there has been a wealth of nuclear related crises for the White House to contend with….most of which the are problems of their own making…..Iran comes to mind and then there is North Korea and the “summit” and the nuke negotiations that are trying to take place….
Let’s step into the “Way Back Machine” to the glory days of the Cold War…..nukes were on everyone’s lips…..and the US having been the ONLY nation to ever use nukes had a plan…..
Recently declassified documents shed light on a U.S. nuclear war plan developed in 1964 by the Pentagon’s Joint Staff to bomb Russia – then the Soviet Union – and China with nuclear weapons so extensively that it would destroy them “as viable societies.” The war plan itself, known as Single Integrated Operational Plan 64 (SIOP-64), has not been declassified, as no SIOP has ever been released to the public by the United States government.
However, newly declassified documents that record the Pentagon Joint Staff’s review of SIOP-64 were recently made available through George Washington University’s National Security Archive project. The documents reveal numerous details about the still-classified plan that shine light on the Pentagon’s willingness to wage nothing short of total war against its adversaries at the time.
In particular, the documents show that the plan sought to accomplish the destruction of Russian and Chinese society by targeting and eliminating their industrial potential while also wiping out the majority of their urban populations. Still more troubling, urban civilians were proposed to be the main target and measure of the U.S. nuclear war plan as the Joint Staff sought to use “population loss as the primary yardstick for effectiveness in destroying the enemy society, with only collateral attention to industrial damage.”
Yes that is right….there was an actual plan to bomb the Soviet Union and China into the Stone Age.
Let’s look at nuclear constraints…….
The United States Army and the Russian Army view each other as potential future adversaries. General Mark Milley, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, has spoken extensively about the threat Russia poses and its adversarial nature.[1] Likewise, the 2014 “Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation” also identifies the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as the primary threat to Russia.[2] While the U.S. and Russian militaries view each other in an adversarial way, both have developed different conclusions about future warfare based on the current environment and the constraining impact of nuclear weapons. The U.S. Army has returned to emphasizing large-scale operations against near-peer threats like Russia, as outlined in its recently updated doctrine in Field Manual 3-0: Operations.[3] In contrast, while Russia has retained some large formations—designed to deter attacks and if needed fight under nuclear conditions—Moscow has turned towards more ambiguous methods employing smaller, more agile conventional formations to achieve external political objectives.[4] In fact, General Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the Russian General Staff, has suggested the greatest threat to Russia is from a U.S. sponsored political movement and other U.S. strategic capabilities, but not large-scale conventional operations.[5] Russia’s preparation for future warfare better appreciates the realities of nuclear constraints; rather than preparing for large-scale operations, the U.S. should prepare for small, politically constrained, ambiguous, limited conflict with Russia.
This history lesson could turn into a graduate dissertation….so to limit the size of the post we will talk about military leaders of the firearms era….
On August 16, 1812, General William Hull of the U.S. Army surrendered Fort Detroit to an inferior English force. American forces numbered about 2,100, while the combined English and Native American forces only numbered just over 1,300. Hull was court-martialed, convicted and sentenced to death. Luckily President Madison gave him a reprieve. History is full of military blunders and dunderheads,
If you are ever in Paris then I recommend a visit to the Louvre, a top notch museum…think Mona Lisa, The Thinker, Gaugin, van Gogh, etc…..
But the site has not always been a museum……in the past it has been a fort and a palace…..
Pairing a priceless permanent collection with a captivating history, it is no wonder why Paris’ Musée du Louvreis the most visited museum in the world. Though it is renowned for its role as a major arts institution, it has not always exhibited masterpieces during its 800 years of existence.
Before housing famous sculptures and paintings, the Louvre was home to France’s kings and queens. And prior to its stint as a palace, it was a fortress intended to protect the city of Paris from invasions. Here, we explore the museum’s unique history, tracing its fascinating evolution from medieval castle to world-class art museum.
For as long as I can remember the US has run on a political platform of “law and order”….and especially the GOP, it is the Law and Order party.
We are a country that prides ourselves on being a nation of laws and the use of courts to maintain order.
It is not a perfect system but a system that we are very proud of….if all that is true why is the International Criminal Court (ICC) catching Hell from Our Dear Leader and his minions?
John Bolton gave his first major speech as national security adviser Monday, and it was a doozy. He unloaded on the “illegitimate” International Criminal Court and warned its judges they will pay a stiff price if they go after US troops in Afghanistan, reports the New York Times. “The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution,” said Bolton. “We will ban its judges and prosecutors from entering” the US, “we will sanction their funds in the US financial system, and we will prosecute them in the US criminal system.” He added that the same punishments apply to “any company or state that assists in an ICC investigation of Americans.” The speech came as the US took a related action by shutting down the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in DC.
The two developments are related in that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is threatening to take Israel to the ICC, reports CNN. The “PLO has not taken steps to advance the start of direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel,” says the State Department in justifying the office closure. And Bolton added, “We will not allow the ICC, or any other organization, to constrain Israel’s right to self-defense,” per the Wall Street Journal. Bolton, along with many on the right, has long viewed the ICC as hostile to America, notes the Times. “The largely unspoken, but always central, aim of its most vigorous supporters was to constrain the United States,” Bolton said Monday. Now, he says, per the Guardian, “the ICC is already dead to us.”
Seriously? A nation that prides itself on living a life of “law and order” does not want to live by “law and order”?
Bolton took the occasion of an appearance before a group of lawyers to declare the US government’s defiance of any constraint on its actions under international law, which he characterized as an attack on American sovereignty. His main concern was not so much for front-line soldiers, as for the decision-makers, from military commanders on the battlefield to war planners and strategists in Washington, right up to the White House itself, who he said were in danger of being “intimidated” by the threat of war crimes charges.
This is the perfect situation to explain a Trump as president. The rules and laws do not apply to the US for we can do as we want with no interference of laws.
I feel it should be mandatory if a nation is to do business globally then the ICC member they should be.
I do not write much on the China situation for I do not dwell in the Asia for much time. But I would like to rectify that oversight on my part.
These are the biggest stories that I found while researching on the world wide web…….
Something Christians need to know….
China’s government is ratcheting up a crackdown on Christian congregations, destroying crosses, burning Bibles, shutting churches, and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith, according to pastors and a group that monitors religion in China. The campaign corresponds with a drive to “Sinicize” religion by demanding loyalty to the atheist Communist Party. Bob Fu of the US-based group China Aid said that the recent closure of churches in Henan province and a prominent house church in Beijing is a “significant escalation” and that the “international community should be alarmed and outraged for this blatant violation of freedom of religion and belief.” Under President Xi Jinping, believers are seeing freedoms shrink dramatically even amid a religious revival. Activists say Xi is waging the most severe suppression of Christianity since religious freedom was written into the constitution in 1982.
Fu also provided video of piles of burning Bibles and forms stating that the signatories had renounced their Christian faith. He said that marked the first time since Mao’s radical 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution that Christians had been compelled to make such declarations, under pain of expulsion from school and loss of welfare benefits. Chinese law requires believers to worship only in congregations registered with the authorities, but many millions belong to so-called underground or house churches. In Beijing, the Zion church was shut on Sunday by around 60 government workers, said Ezra Jin Mingri, the church’s pastor. Zion is known as the largest house church in Beijing, with six branches. The officials declared the gatherings illegal and sealed off church properties, Jin said. “Churches will continue to develop. Blocking the sites will only intensify conflicts,” Jin told the AP.
There is more religious news coming out of China……
President Trump has been quick to go after China on trade issues, but the New York Times reports his administration is poised to penalize Beijing on a human rights issue for perhaps the first time. The administration is considering sanctions in response to China’s crackdown on minority Muslims, specifically ethnic Uighurs, in the name of national security.
The AP reports an estimated 1 million Uighurs and other Muslims have been detained in interment camps in Xinjiang province for indoctrination by the officially atheist government, and their plight is a cause of growing international concern. Human Rights Watch, for example, declared in a report over the weekend “that the human rights violations in Xinjiang today are of a scope and scale not seen in China since the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.”
Dear Leader going to put Muslims first (for a change)…..fascinating.
The US seems to be always have “war games” with this country or that….and now the 2 main opponents to US foreign policy have teamed up…….
Russia launched a massive military exercise on Tuesday, its biggest since the Cold War, reports the BBC. That alone would be enough to make headlines, but another twist has cinched it: China is taking part in the war games as well—the first time Russia has invited any country beyond its former Soviet satellites, notes the Wall Street Journal. The bulk of the troops taking part in the five-day drills in eastern Russia near the Chinese border are Russian: 300,000 vs. about 3,200 from China. Mongolia also sent a small contingent. The stories note that the joint military exercise is taking place as both nations’ relations with NATO in general and the US in particular have soured of late.
“The exercise is an opportunity to prepare for a range of large-scale war and crisis scenarios,” an analyst at the think tank Rand Corp. tells the Journal. “The focus is on the Pacific theater for contingencies, in North Korea, for example. But the capabilities tested could apply to a conflict with the West.” This is China’s largest such exercise outside its own borders, reports the AP. The first day coincided with a visit to Russia by Chinese President Xi Jinping. “We’re obviously aware of it, we’re watching it closely,” said Army Col. Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman. “We’re aware of Russia’s right to sovereignty and to exercise in order to ensure their readiness.”
These are stories that the American news outlets will not offer up to its listeners…..so chuq has made it his duty to give this type of info to my readers.
I lived through Katrina and I witnessed the fiasco that was Maria last year…..plus I dealt with a near miss this year and now yet another storm is headed for the US but this time it is headed for the Southeast Coast of North and South Carolina…..
According to Our Dear Leader the government is ready for yet another successful handling of a hurricane….like that of Puerto Rico last year……
With a powerful hurricane bearing down on the southeast coast, President Donald Trump on Tuesday turned attention back to the federal government’s response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico a year ago, deeming it “incredibly successful” even though a recent federal report found that nearly 3,000 people died, the AP reports. The administration’s efforts in Puerto Rico received widespread criticism. But “I actually think it was one of the best jobs that’s ever been done with respect to what this is all about,” Trump said Tuesday of the response in Puerto Rico, suggesting that it was made more difficult by the “island nature” of the storm site. The president praised the response to the series of storms that battered the United States last year, saying “I think Puerto Rico was an incredible, unsung success. Texas we’ve been given A-pluses for. Florida we’ve been given A-pluses for.”
After visiting Puerto Rico last September, Trump said that Puerto Ricans were fortunate that the storm did not yield a catastrophe akin to the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast. All told, about 1,800 people died in that 2005 storm. Puerto Rico’s governor last month raised the US territory’s official death toll from Hurricane Maria from 64 to 2,975. The storm is also estimated to have caused $100 billion in damage. While defending the handling of the previous storms, Trump on Tuesday urged caution in regards to the new one bearing down on North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. “The safety of American people is my absolute highest priority,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We are sparing no expense. We are totally prepared. We are ready. We are ready as anybody has ever been.” (A recent simulation showed a hurricane “alarmingly similar” to Florence devastating the East Coast.)
The reports are that over a million people have been evacuated from the Coastline….and that the state has 80,000 gallons of water, about 400,000 meals, 34 generators, and other supplies…..
I may not be a math genius but supplies on hand and people that will be in need….the math does not work.
My thoughts and prayers are with the people in the path of this storm….
Nowadays we do not hear the Monroe Doctrine being used as it had been in the past. It was referenced when the US invade Grenada, it was quoted when the USSR put missiles in Cuba, and it was used to start a war known as the Spanish-American War.
The document is not quoted much these days so most Americans have little idea what it is and what it is suppose to do.
Monroe Doctrine, (December 2, 1823), cornerstone of U.S.foreign policy enunciated by Pres. James Monroe in his annual message to Congress. Declaring that the Old World and New World had different systems and must remain distinct spheres, Monroe made four basic points: (1) the United States would not interfere in the internal affairs of or the wars between European powers; (2) the United States recognized and would not interfere with existing colonies and dependencies in the Western Hemisphere; (3) the Western Hemisphere was closed to future colonization; and (4) any attempt by a European power to oppress or control any nation in the Western Hemisphere would be viewed as a hostile act against the United States.
The doctrine was an outgrowth of concern in both Britain and the United States that the continental powers would attempt to restore Spain’s former colonies, in Latin America, many of which had become newly independent nations. The United States was also concerned about Russia’s territorial ambitions in the northwest coast of North America. As a consequence, George Canning, the British foreign minister, suggested a joint U.S.-British declaration forbidding future colonization in Latin America. Monroe was initially favourable to the idea, and former presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madisonconcurred. But Secretary of State John Quincy Adams argued that the United States should issue a statement of American policy exclusively, and his view ultimately prevailed.
What are the basic tenets of the Doctrine?
…the Monroe Doctrine laid out four basic tenets that would define American foreign policy for decades. The first two promised that the U.S. would not interfere in the affairs of European states, be they wars or internal politics, and that the U.S. would not interfere with European states’ extant colonial enterprises. In exchange, it stipulated that the Western Hemisphere was no longer open to further colonization and that an attempt on the part of a European power to colonize territory in the Western Hemisphere would be understood by the U.S. as an act of aggression.
The US attempted to influence the internal conditions of a sovereign country……
The Trump administration dabbled in aiding a military overthrow of Venezuela’s president but ultimately just met with coup plotters—a development that could still anger Latin American leaders wary of any possible US intervention, the New York Times reports. Seems American officials met with Venezuelan military officers at least three times abroad and listened to their plans, however vague, to kick out President Nicolás Maduro and install a transitional government. But according to those involved, the US never gave them the encrypted radios they requested and backed away when roughly 150 plotters were arrested in a crackdown. Apparently the whole thing began with an off-hand remark by President Trump.
“We have many options for Venezuela and by the way, I’m not going to rule out a military option,” the president said at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club last year, the Guardian reported. Those words inspired rebellious Venezuelan officers to reach out during the nation’s economic collapse, but US officials say the Venezuelans lacked specific ideas and hoped the Americans would offer a plan. According to an ex-military commander in Venezuela, the US dallied while coup plotters waited: “We were frustrated,” he said. No coup attempt happened, but the meetings could remind Latin Americans of past interventions like the US-backed Chilean coup in 1973 and support for right-wing Nicaraguan rebels in the 1980s. “This is going to land like a bomb” in the region, says a former US diplomat.
Maybe it is time for a new “Monroe Doctrine”…..Our Dear Leader seems Hell bent on intervening in the situations in the Western hemisphere….maybe it is time for something new……
After the collapse of Chavism, which way will Latin America turn?
It wasn’t long ago that Venezuela, led by a fiery caudillo and dedicated to spreading its brand of populist super-socialism, boosted allies’ economies near and far with petrodollars. Hugo Chavez was spreading his Bolivarian revolution all over and times were good.
The original document has been used to intervene in the affairs of countries in the Western hemisphere…..time to set a new set of rules for intervention…..avoid at all costs.
As most visitors know is that I spend a lot of time reading and writing about the Middle East. The one country in the region that should be our closest ally is Kuwait.
I realize that a good portion of my readers are young and may not be aware of why Kuwait should be our closest Middle East friend.
I shall give a short history…..after Iran/Iraq signed a ceasefire from their 10 year war….Iraq’s Saddam turned his attention to his mneighbor to the South, Kuwait.
On Aug. 2, 1990 Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, his small neighbor to the South and set in motion a chain of events that would impact America and the rest of the world forever. Within mere days, Operation Desert Shield was in full swing with U.S. Military Personnel streaming into Saudi Arabia. Over the next 6 months the buildup of U.S. forces would total close to 700,000 Americans. On January 16th 1991 Operation Desert Storm was launched following Saddam Hussein’s refusal to heed U.N. Resolution 678 by refusing to withdraw his Iraqi forces from Kuwait by January 15, 1991 deadline. After a more than four weeks of relentless bombardment by U.S. and coalition Air Strikes, the ground phase kicked in and was completed in an astounding 100 hours!
The US went to war to get some justice for Kuwait and the events that followed Iraq’s invasion.
It appears that Kuwait is pulling a way from the US and towards the nations of Iran and China…..
The relationship with Kuwait should be one of the United States’ strongest, but it is starting to fray. There’s still time to set it right, and the Kuwaiti Emir’s visit to Washington last week was a good start. Meanwhile, however, investors remain on edge, as they have been ever since officials in this Gulf state froze millions of dollars in American and international assets without any clear explanation.
Candidly, there’s a lot going on in Kuwait that’s suspect. The regime seems to be cozying up to Iran and China, officials have made remarks about Israel that are just short of incendiary, and corruption surrounding the delivery of supplies to U.S. troops stationed there has been highly disruptive. Americans, it seems to me, have the right to expect better from those whom they saved by leading an international intervention after their country was invaded by Saddam Hussein.
