Day: December 4, 2018

One More Death

Closing Thought–04Dec18

I have been reporting the deaths of our troops in this War on Terror…last month was the deadliest month in Afghanistan for American troops…..

https://lobotero.com/2018/11/29/the-deadliest-month-2/

But as always there is more sad news!

A soldier injured in the above attack has died from his wounds…..

A U.S. soldier has died from injuries suffered in a roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan, becoming the fourth American to have been killed by the explosion last week, the Pentagon says.

Sgt. Jason Mitchell McClary, 24, from Export, Pa., died Sunday at a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, the Pentagon announced Monday. The blast occurred Tuesday near Ghazni city, Afghanistan, less than 100 miles from Kabul, the Defense Department said in a statement. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for it.

“The Rock battalion expresses its deepest sympathies and condolences to the family and friends tragically affected by the loss of Sgt. Jason McClary. He epitomizes what it is to be a professional, a warrior and a soldier,” Lt. Col. Christopher Roberts, the commander of 1st Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, said in a statement. “Sgt. McClary served honorably as an up-armored vehicle gunner for the Attack Company. His memory and contributions will never be forgotten.”

(FOX News)

I wish that these reports could cease but until they do IST will continue to remind the public about the plight of the troops serving this country…..if you would like to read the DoD release……https://dod.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1703421/dod-identifies-army-casualty/

IST send out deepest condolences to the family and friends of Sgt. McClary….may he Rest In Peace.

They Did Not Survive The Cold War

The death of the president that resided over the end of the Cold War got me to thinking about a lot of things especially in the fields of foreign policy and international relations…..

There comes a time when even something as the Cold War becomes history…..so for those youngsters that may be visiting IST let me tell you about the Cold War…..the Cold War was a state of political hostilities between the US and the USSR…..

A few attempts to explain the Cold War to my readers…..it is simple and quicker than trying to write a simple explanation……

Now that you have the background on the Cold War I can move on to where this post is going……

Ever heard of Aceh….or Biafra……or maybe Tibet……those are a few of the countries that did not survive the Cold War and they are NOT alone……

The Cold War spelled the end of numerous countries from 1947-91. Grenada, whose story was featured at the Historiat earlier this week , survived. Poland, Egypt, and Thailand survived, too. The country of South Vietnam, on the other hand, did not survive. On Oct. 26, 1955, South Vietnam declared its independence from Vietnam proper, kicking off a decades-long war that dragged in both Cold War superpowers and the longtime regional kingmaker in southeast Asia, China.

We all know that things ended badly for the rebels. Here are 10 more countries that didn’t survive, either:

https://www.realclearhistory.com/articles/2018/10/25/10_countries_that_didnt_survive_the_cold_war_372.html

I shall keep posting on the history around the Cold War whenever I can find something unusual for my readers……

Learn Stuff!

Class Dismissed!

Farewell To A President

Over this past weekend this country lost a president……POTUS 41…..George HW Bush died at age 94…..

I admit I was never a supporter of his……I worked against him in his run against Clinton but to be fair I worked in opposition to Clinton as well…..but from an international relations point of view Bush1 was a good president…..as the 41st president he oversaw the end of the Cold War and the beginning of a uni-polar world…..he went to war on several occasions that I opposed……and worked hard to stop the wars ….

Richard Haass wrote a good piece about Bush1’s chops as president…..

I have worked for four US presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike, and perhaps the most important thing I have learned along the way is that little of what we call history is inevitable. What happens in this world is the result of what people choose to do and choose not to do when presented with challenges and opportunities.

George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States, was presented with more than his share of challenges and opportunities, and the record is clear: he left the country and the world considerably better off than he found them.

I worked for and often with Bush for all four years of his presidency. I was the National Security Council member responsible for overseeing the development and execution of policy for the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. I was also brought into a good many other policy deliberations.

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-world-george-h-w-bush-made/

I think I liked Bush as a man because he actually served this country in the time of war…..the last president to do so……

And so passes George Herbert Walker Bush, the last American President to face combat. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the United States into World War II, he deferred admission to Yale and joined the Navy at the age of 18, just out of prep school in the June of 1942. He went to war in 1943, barely a man, saying later, “I was scared but I was willing. I was young, but I was ready. I had barely started living when I began to see men die.” He saw significant combat across the Pacific as a carrier-based bomber pilot, serving with deep courage and commitment, completing 58 combat missions and surviving two crashes.

http://time.com/5468640/george-hw-bush-military-service-navy/

But my memories are not all glowing…..I feel that under his leadership the GOP was handed over to the Religious Right which had the beginnings of the world we have today.

He also was a better president….he called supply side economics its better name voodoo economics….we can give him the win for the Cold War and he did what needed doing at the time raised taxes (that was the kiss of death for the rich donors) and he looked for a balance between the branches…..

I may not have wanted this person to be re-elected but I did appreciate what he was attempting to do as far as foreign policy goes….not much I would have supported but could understand.

But at least it threw Trump off the headlines and I bet he has had a sigh of relief for that.

Goodbye HW….You will be missed…..RIP

Sully, HW’s service dog bids farewell.

Why The Saudis Are The Threat

We all know that the Saudis are implicated in the death of Khashoggi…..most of the civilized world is condemning them for their action…..that is civilized that do not depend on Saudi cash for whatever reason…..

The president is waffling on the Saudis role…..this I expect since his first overseas trip was to suck up to the Saudis…..and then there is the secretary of state, Pompeo refusing to condemn but that should be expected from a person totally controlled by the M-IC…..then there is Mattis who at one point I did have some respect for but those ships have sailed off down the Potomac…..I am guessing that Mattis is securing his place with the M-IC once he abandons the ship of Trump…..

The Trump administration’s determination to maintain warm ties with the Saudi royal family came into clear focus this week when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis showed up at the Senate.

Senators wanted to know more about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and U.S. support for Saudi airstrikes in Yemen.

Instead, Pompeo and Mattis kept pivoting to the threat posed by Iran.

A smile frozen on his face, Pompeo deflected a reporter’s question on why the CIA director had not appeared to brief senators on intelligence implicating Saudi Arabia’s crown prince in Khashoggi’s killing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pompeo-and-mattis-criticized-for-defending-us-alliance-with-saudi-arabia/2018/11/30/2bc22a84-f416-11e8-aeea-b85fd44449f5_story.html

But the big thing is that the Saudis like the Iranians will acquire nuclear weapons…….seriously!

The Trump administration’s handling of nuclear negotiations with Saudi Arabia promises to lay bare some realities about security issues and nuclear programs in that part of the world that the administration has refused to acknowledge. A front-page article by David Sanger and William Broad in the New York Times reviews some of the still-unresolved questions. The Saudi regime insists on producing its own nuclear fuel, which would be different from terms the United States has negotiated with some other states, including the United Arab Emirates, that have sought U.S. assistance in developing their nuclear programs. The Saudis have balked at comprehensive international inspections to detect any work on nuclear weapons. And Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) has explicitly threatened to develop nuclear weapons, ostensibly in response to any similar development by Iran.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/why-saudi-arabia-will-acquire-nuclear-weapons-37197

Think about it!

A country with extreme religious beliefs that acquires nukes…..and I do not writing about Iran.  Keep in mind the majority of the terrorists on 9/11 were Saudis….they are NO friends of the US….we are useful fools for their policies.