COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, October 09, 2017

There was no AFRICOM until 2008. Why is there one now, at a time of declining resources for such Beau Geste adventures, expensive in financial terms and now in American forces’ lives?

BACKGROUND:

Niger adventures: More U.S. soldiers die in a land of no U.S. interest 


Americans learned the sad news Thursday that three American Special Forces soldiers had been killed and two more wounded in the West African desert state of Niger the day before.

They also learned that some 800 U.S. forces are based in Niger, that one drone base has been built and is manned by Americans in Niamey, the Niger capital, and that another drone base is being constructed in Agadez, in northern Niger.

The Pentagon is saying that it will be looking into the circumstances under which the Americans were killed and wounded, particularly since, in principle, the U.S. troops are in Niger working with that country’s troops only in a training capacity, and, presumably, building and operating the drone bases.

The first question is, what are hundreds of U.S. troops doing in Niger? It is a French-speaking nation for which France has traditionally played the important “godfather” role, including with military forces. Niger is a poor nation of 21 million, with few notable resources apart from the fact of its central location, landlocked, and bordering on Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Nigeria and southern Libya, a largely desert area of little or no strategic importance to the United States.

The claim in the past has been that some of the various shadowy tribal militia forces operating in the region have al-Qaida or Islamic State links but the intelligence supporting that argument for U.S. forces to be in Niger is shaky at best. They can better be described as armed bandit gangs.

The second major question is why Americans learn of U.S. military involvement in Niger, in combat in fact, only when American soldiers die? No one seems to recall an American president or Congress declaring war in Niger. What we are looking at instead is one piece of an expansion of U.S. military activity in Africa to justify the existence of the U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM.

U.S. forces under AFRICOM for years chased around unsuccessfully in Central Africa the Lord’s Resistance Army, no threat to the United States. It has helped wealthy Nigeria combat, also relatively unsuccessfully, the forces of Boko Haram, based in northeastern Nigeria and occasionally active in neighboring Cameroon, Niger and Benin. U.S. forces have been active in Somalia, off and on since 1992, trying to bring some sort of order there, coherent government in Mogadishu, the capital, having been absent since January 1991. The fighting in Somalia has justified the creation and maintenance of a U.S. base, the only one in Africa, in neighboring Djibouti, ex-French Somaliland, with thousands of U.S. forces, fighter bombers and a drone base.


The deaths of three elite U.S. soldiers in obscure Niger should raise in Washington, at the Pentagon, the White House and in Congress the profound question — with large financial implications — of why the United States is involved in sub-Saharan Africa at all. There was no AFRICOM until 2008. Why is there one now, at a time of declining resources for such Beau Geste adventures, expensive in financial terms and now in American forces’ lives?

78 comments:

  1. The world wide "War on Terror" demands a global presence by US

    Any where, Any time, the US will find a reason to be afraid ... and deploy our 'fabulous' military.

    The US actions in Niger, merely part of ... 'the calm before the storm'.

    ReplyDelete
  2. January 2009

    Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert visited service members assigned to Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, January 20, 2009.

    Greenert made the trip to Camp Lemonnier to get insight and feedback on current operations and campaign plans in the CJTF-HOA area of responsibility with respect to Navy force shaping. Upon landing, he met with junior service members from each military branch and asked about their experiences serving in U.S. Africa Command.

    "I'm amazed at the professionalism of the people we have here, the diverse skill set and the positive attitude everybody has," Greenert said.

    The admiral also held an all-hands call with all Navy personnel serving at Camp Lemonnier. He reassured them that that day's transition of power to newly-inaugurated President Barack Obama later that day will not result in any immediate changes in the operational environment. He also discussed other issues facing junior sailors and officers alike, including advancement and force shaping but concentrating on the Individual Augmentee (IA) program that had brought them all to Djibouti. He stressed that Navy officials recognize there is always room for improvement in the program and they are striving to do so every day.

    "If we're going to ask people to take a part of their career path to do something a little different, to provide their special skill to the joint arena and to a campaign very important to all of us, we have to be able to integrate that into a Navy career and make it a special part of that career that will influence them in the future," Greenert said.

    He encouraged the sailors to keep up the great work they were doing in the joint environment, discussing the strategic importance of maintaining a positive presence in Africa.

    ReplyDelete
  3. DANIEL VOLMAN
    DEC 03, 2008

    Daniel Volman gives us the history and reasons for the creation of Africom, and why it will have disastrous consequences in and for Africa. He looks at Obama's likely support for Africom but also calls on us to engage Obama over the future of Africom.

    On 6 February 2007, President Bush announced that the United States would create a new military command for Africa, to be known as Africa Command or Africom. Throughout the Cold War and for more than a decade afterwards, the U.S. did not have a military command for Africa; instead, U.S. military activities on the African continent were conducted by three separate military commands: the European Command, which had responsibility for most of the continent; the Central Command, which oversaw Egypt and the Horn of Africa region along with the Middle East and Central Asia; and the Pacific Command, which administered military ties with Madagascar and other islands in the Indian Ocean.

    Until the creation of Africom, the administration of U.S.-African military relations was conducted through three different commands. All three were primarily concerned with other regions of the world that were of great importance to the United States on their own and had only a few middle-rank staff members dedicated to Africa. This reflected the fact that Africa was chiefly viewed as a regional theater in the global Cold War, or as an adjunct to U.S.-European relations, or—as in the immediate post-Cold War period—as a region of little concern to the United States. But when the Bush administration declared that access to Africa’s oil supplies would henceforth be defined as a “strategic national interest” of the United States and proclaimed that America was engaged in a Global War on Terrorism following the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, Africa’s status in U.S. national security policy and military affairs rose dramatically [1].

    According to Theresa Whelan, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs—the highest ranking Defense Department official with principal responsibility for Africa at the Pentagon, who has supervised U.S. military policy toward Africa for the Bush administration—Africom attained the status of a sub-unified command under the European Command on 1 October 2007, and is scheduled to be fully operational as a separate unified command no later than 1 October 2008. The process of creating the new command will be conducted by a special transition team — which will include officers from both the State Department and the Defense Department—that will carry out its work in Stuttgart, Germany, in coordination with the European Command.

    {...}

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. {...}

      In addition, President Obama is certain to come under pressure from business interests and lobbyists (especially from the oil companies); certain think tanks and NGOs; officials at the State Department, the Agency for International Development, and the Pentagon; and from some African governments to pursue the plan for Africom initiated by the Bush administration. It is likely, therefore, that the Obama administration will continue the militarization of U.S. policy toward Africa unless it comes under pressure to change direction. However, members of the U.S. Congress are now beginning to give Africom the critical scrutiny it deserves and to express serious skepticism about its mission and operations. Moreover, a number of concerned organizations and individuals in the United States and in Africa—the Resist Africom Campaign—came together in August 2006 to educate the American people about Africom and to mobilize public and congressional opposition to the creation of the new command. And the Resist Africom Campaign will continue to press the Obama administration to abandon the Bush plan for Africom and pursue a policy toward Africa based on a genuine partnership with the people of Africa, multi-lateralism, democracy, human rights, and grass-roots development [21].

      Africom - Bush - Obama

      Delete
    2. We never learn a damn thing. Our military establishment is a fiasco and has bee since the end of WWII. One fucking loser after another.
      Africa presaged the Libyan debacle.

      Now we are on to Korea and Trump is unhappy that Iran and Russia seem to be ending the Bush - Clinton - Bush - Obama catastrophic five trillion dollar multi-million murder failure in the Middle East.

      Delete
  4. MORE:

    ...According to the Pentagon, the Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha, otherwise known as an “A-Team,” went on a routine patrol Wednesday afternoon with about 20 troops from the Niger Armed Forces when they came under heavy fire.

    Officials said a barrage of machine gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades from about 50 militants forced the U.S. and Nigerien troops into defensive positions near the border with Mali. The fire peppered the troops’ trucks and shattered windows before they could regroup and fire back.

    The soldiers called in support from French attack helicopters and fighter jets. It’s not clear whether the aircraft fired.

    Amid the chaos, the officials said, one of the 12 Green Berets was left behind in a border region notorious for drug smuggling, human trafficking and myriad extremist militias, including allies of al-Qaida and Islamic State.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. and myriad extremist militias, including allies of al-Qaida and Islamic State

      That at least ties the adventure to fighting the Islamic State.

      Delete
  5. SAY WHAT?


    The soldiers called in support from French attack helicopters and fighter jets. It’s not clear whether the aircraft fired.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I don't see The Donald's position on any of this.

    And I haven't read anything signifying any interest in it by him.

    But he has declined to get involved in Syria.

    That is something, whether it is right or wrong is another matter.

    This:

    pursue a policy toward Africa based on a genuine partnership with the people of Africa, multi-lateralism, democracy, human rights, and grass-roots development

    is just lukewarm word soup gruel, meaning nothing at all.

    It sounds like it comes from a Peace Corps booklet.

    The Peace Corps is generally acknowledged to have been a big waste of time and money.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. The test is simple. Syria, Iraq, Iran and Russia have reestablished the beginning of stability in a region wrecked by four US presidents. Do we have the good sense and decency to get out and stay out? It is their business, their neighborhood and no place for US troops.

      Delete
    3. The Donald bombed a Syrian air force base with Tomahawk missiles.

      The Donald has been arming ai-Qeada operatives, there

      Actions by Mr Trump, boobie, speak louder than his tweets.

      Delete
  7. It will be only a matter of weeks before the Neocons start howling about the Russians, Syrians, Iran and the Hezbollah cleaning up the shit storm we started.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Speaking of Neocons, is McCain still with us?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Still sharing his acquired wisdom:


      U.S. Sen. John McCain had a message for Naval Academy midshipmen Thursday about retired members of the military entering politics.

      In a video interview with The Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward, recorded specifically for a Naval Academy conference Thursday the ailing Arizona Republican and former candidate for president offered his thoughts on the subject for his “young friends in the brigade of midshipmen.”

      “I’ve been around a long, long time. I’ve made more mistakes than most anybody you will ever know,” McCain said. “But one thing has guided me, is what I learned the first day I walked through the main gate at the Naval Academy. And that was do the right thing, and do it honorably, and you can never go wrong.”

      It’s a lesson he hasn’t always followed, the 1958 academy graduate said.

      Delete
    2. You both thought Mr Maverick McCain would have made a dandy President

      Stay the course, boys.

      Delete
    3. OK.

      Not dandy.

      But McCain wouldn't have been any worse than Obama, and probably considerably better, and he had Sarah to hearten the country.

      Same with Trump. I wouldn't call him dandy, but he is really much better than Hillary could have ever been, no contest.

      And of the two she has the itchier trigger finger. She wasn't even President, and she fucked up Libya and helped in Syria.

      Delete
  9. 9/11 started some of it.

    Saddam invading Kuwait started some more.

    After that it gets murky trying to discern who started what.....



    If we need a partner in the Africa area I'd suggest Goodluck Jonathon, and his wife Patience.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodluck_Jonathan

    Goodluck may be corrupt but he's a Christian and did kill a number of Boko Haram (books forbidden) types, since which action I've always held him in decent regard.

    He doesn't seem to be a playa right now, in fact he may be arrested one of these days for corruption.

    This mean nothing as everyone is corrupt over that way, and I like his name.

    How can one go wrong backing Goodluck and Patience Jonathan ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Goodluck did pass power peacefully to the winner of the election.

      He contested and lost the 2015 presidential election, upon which he conceded defeat and became the first sitting Nigerian president to do so.[2] Jonathan's term as President of Nigeria ended on 29 May 2015, with Muhammadu Buhari becoming the new president.
      wiki

      That may turn out to be Goodluck's big bad luck mistake, given the political realities of the area.

      Delete
    2. Nigeria is another country that should be broken into at least two parts.

      Delete
    3. The boobie, always ready to destroy the works of the Western World.

      To destroy the monoments built by our Western forebears, because those monuments conflict with his political flavor of the day.

      Delete
    4. That statement doesn't even make any sense.

      Delete
  10. Deuce's man Trump has surrounded himself with GREAT military men. Why the surprise then that every problem has a military solution?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No surprise, Ash

      When tbe only tool in tbe is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail

      I read that Mr Trump was REALLY UPSET that the Generals insist that there is no viable 'nuclear option' with regards NorK

      Delete
    2. Shock & Awe in Korea will leave millions of Koreans dead.

      The Kim's NorK is not at all similar to the Assad's Syria.

      Those NorK artillery tubes CAN reach the 25 million people in Seoul, despite what the MSM in London say.

      The NorKs will counter punch.
      If hit.

      Delete
    3. The military genius of ISIS in Iraq speaks.

      Delete
    4. Well, the Islamic State is in the ash heap of history, and very, very few US troops were required to put it there.

      US and Russian air support made all the difference. Slower going then I had hoped for, had thought possible ...

      But the US Military did such a poor job in the decade it had training the Iraqi military.

      I over estimated the adequacy of the US commitment to "Purple Fingers of Freedom", there in Iraq



      Mr Obama set the course, Mr Trump stayed on it.

      Delete
  11. Nigeria ought to be broken up into a Christian south and a muzzie north, for the sake of dear sweet peace for those to come.

    ReplyDelete
  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. HAWIJA, Iraq — The jubilant outpouring that erupted in the heart of Hawija on Friday, the day after Iraqi forces claimed victory there, celebrated more than the fact that the Islamic State militants had finally been routed from the city, their last major urban stronghold in Iraq.

      For many of the Shiite Muslim militiamen, who sped through the streets in pickups, flying militia colors and blaring religious music on loudspeakers, and the federal paramilitary police, who feasted on mutton and rice, their swift two-week victory represented the beginning of the end for militants who just three years ago ruled a third of Iraq.

      “Game over,” said Gen. Sabah al-Aboda of the Iraqi police, as he chewed a date in the shade of a collapsed storefront. “When they lost Mosul, they were broken.”


      Delete

    2. “Federal Police, the rapid Response forces, the third and fourth brigades of al-Hashd al-Shaabi [Popular Mobilization Forces] accomplished its targets of the second phase of operations in Hawija,” Lt. Gen. Abdul Amir Yarallah, commander of Hawija Operations, said in a statement on Saturday.


      In another statement by the Defense Ministry’s War Media Cell, Yarallah said, “troops killed 385 IS members, including five snipers, and arrested six others. 95 booby-trapped vehicles and 422 explosives were defused. 20 rest houses were destroyed.

      150 villages in Hawija were freed, in addition to al-Abbassi region and the northern side of Hawija, the statement said. Huge amounts of weapons were found, 10 tunnels and five telecommunications centers were destroyed. 240 civilians were evacuated.


      Delete

  13. Christians and Yazidis see a bleak future in a proposed independent Kurdish state


    https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/christians-and-yazidis-see-a-bleak-future-in-a-proposed-independent-kurdish-state-1.491490#.Wdtoj59lDqA

    ReplyDelete
  14. Deuce's man Trump has surrounded himself with GREAT military men. Why the surprise then that every problem has a military solution?

    Boomers, who did not serve in the military, often evolve into hyper-military fans. Veterans are remarkably less so. Personally, I find American idolatry of the military a little nauseating and plain silly. Trump has fallen for it, lock, stock and plastic barrel. Compare that to Eisenhower, who never returned a salute.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Every guy I knew, who was in the US military during the sixties, knew Viet Nam was a cluster fuck and most said so. We had no illusions about the military establishment.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Why an Independent Kurdistan Will Benefit the US

    BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Thursday, June 8, 2017

    Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government President Massud Barzani (Photo: SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images)

    Masoud Barzani, the President of the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government (IKRG) announced an independence referendum to be held on September 25 this year.

    “The referendum on whether to secede from Iraq will be held in the three governorates that make up the Kurdish region and in the areas that are disputed by the Kurdish and Iraqi governments but are currently under Kurdish military control,” Al-Jazeera reported.

    If they vote yes, how would an independent Kurdistan benefit the United States?

    First of all, an independent Kurdistan would be an American ally. In April 2016 the U.S. agreed to supply the Peshemerga, the autonomous armed forces of the IKRG, with $415 million in financial assistance. The Pentagon also set up a Kurdistan training-coordination center and three training bases.

    Kurds have long supported America and would be opposed to Iranian and Turkish interests. They would be uninterested in supporting efforts to promote Iranian regional hegemony.

    Nor would they be interested in clandestinely supporting terrorist groups and extremist ideologies, as Qatar and Saudi Arabia do.

    Secondly, Kurdistan has a track record of treating minorities far better than its neighbors. At the moment Kurdistan is a safe haven for Christians, Yazidis and other minorities in Iraq, in contrast to the other areas of the country which are plagued by sectarian violence.

    Thirdly, an independent Kurdistan may well make peace with Israel, not just recognition and a ceasefire but a real, warm and open peace. Such an eventuality would be a huge shift in the region that would benefit American efforts to boost stability and trade.

    If Trump’s grand plan for a regional grand deal is ever to come to fruition, the Kurds deserve justice in the form of their own state. Such a state would be an asset to America and to American interests throughout the region.

    https://clarionproject.org/why-an-independent-kurdistan-will-benefit-america/

    ReplyDelete
  17. The time has come for Iraqi Kurdistan to make its choice on independence

    By Masoud Barzani June 28

    ....Kurdistan values its diversity. We are home to Christians, Yazidis, Turkmen, Shabaks, Arabs, Faylis and Kakayees, whose separate identities are recognized in our laws. Since 2003, many Iraqi Christians have moved to Kurdistan to escape violence and persecution elsewhere in the country. And since the Islamic State seized large parts of Iraq in 2014, we have provided for more than 1.5 million Iraqi refugees, with only minimal help from Baghdad or the international community....

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/06/28/the-time-has-come-for-iraqi-kurdistan-to-make-its-choice-on-independence/?utm_term=.c4e59744ecd4

    ReplyDelete
  18. Making the case for Kurdistan
    An independent Kurdistan and a safe zone would buffer Iranian encroachment


    Kurdish Territory Illustration by Greg Groesch/The Washington Times

    By Stephen Hollingshead - - Sunday, August 27, 2017
    ANALYSIS/OPINION

    ERBIL, Iraq — This September 25, Iraqi Kurdistan will hold its long promised referendum on independence from Baghdad. This move is controversial everywhere except in Kurdistan; yet it presents a defining opportunity for U.S. interests.
    President Trump should ratify Iraqi Kurdistan’s overwhelming desire for independence — a long overdue step toward healing the historical injustice of Sykes Picot and also an opportunity to bring his Safe Zone policy to Iraq to reverse the ISIS genocide of Christians, Yazidis, and Turkomen, many of whom have taken refuge inside Iraqi Kurdistan. Moreover, those two steps would create a buffer against ongoing Iranian efforts to build a land bridge to the Mediterranean......

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/27/making-the-case-for-kurdistan/

    ReplyDelete
  19. 1st Kurdistan is not at war with Irael so the tgird point is inane

    2nd, the Kurds have a long history of 'clit clipping'. They are nor social liberals

    Thirdly, the Kurds already are US allies, as noted, destroying Iraq can not, will not" enhance the US position in the region.

    See just how quickly boobie quits on the Purple Fingers of Freedom.

    Indicative of the lack of depth of boobie's commitment to freedom and the lack of value he places on the 4,000 US lives lost in the effort to stabilize Iraq

    He would throw their sacrifice to the wind

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You must be drunk.

      I've never seen so many typos in six or seven 'sentences'.

      Iraq doesn't exist anymore.

      It's part of Greater Iran.

      The Purple Fingers have spoken.

      Sober up.

      Delete
    2. You are delusional, "Draft Dodger".

      Go read Q's response to your inanities, twice

      Delete
  20. .

    Don Quixote Lives and is as Dangerous as Ever

    Bobbie Boy represents the views of many Americans; idealistic, ignorant, and divorced from reality. Most of this group have the excuse of ignorance as they are too busy with kids, jobs, mistresses, football, and everything else that comes with getting by in the US today. They get their understanding of US foreign policy through tropes created by our leaders, 10 minutes of daily coverage on the evening news, and 24/7 coverage of major news stories by the cable news networks. Bob and his bros, on the other hand, do not have that excuse. He is well albeit selectively read; however, his views are driven by partisanship and worse romanticism.

    As evidenced by his comments here, his two major strategic responses to every conflict in the world are 'send in the troops' and 'partition the country', all the time ignoring the realities resulting from either of those actions. He takes a single fact about a people and assumes it defines the totality. He is willing to easily rationalize corruption wherever it's convenient sometimes simply on the basis that he likes a guy's name. Having not served himself and with no fear that his own family will be affected he is perfectly willing to send other Americans into harms way. He seeks confirmation bias through his selective reading of right wing rags and the agendas of ideologues like Horowitz, Rick Moron, Richard Spencer, and Alan Dershowitz. When he is forced to respond to those who question the hypocrisy and damage this country has caused around the world, he falls back on platitudes or offers up inane rationalizations based on philosophers or literary sources pulled from his years as an English major. He is part of today's version of the 'useful idiot', a category that unfortunately applies to large numbers of people on both the left and the right.

    It's hard to take his views seriously.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think you must be drunk too, Quirk.

      Something about Columbus Day Celebration ?

      Send in the troops ?

      What I've advocated above is a Kurdish State, and breaking Nigeria up into its two main component parts so as to save lives by avoiding the inevitable conflict, which has been already going on for some time.

      Before the Rooskies got involved in Syria I advocated for some no-fly zones in the hopes of saving some lives.

      But you called me a warmonger then, too.

      I never read Horowitz, and Dershowitz is hardly a right wing ideologue.

      Heh, you took me seriously about the corrupt Goodluck Jonathon, and his Patience.

      I think you need to go back to bed, drink only water the rest of the day, and get some rest, and a couple of aspirins might not hurt.

      Always looking out for you.....

      Delete
    2. "Useful idiot"? I question the useful part.

      Delete
    3. There is no doubt in anyone's mind, Ash, that you are a useless idiot.

      Quirk himself has said as much.

      Delete
    4. Thankfully you present no real danger to anyone, a redeeming quality.

      Delete
    5. .

      Don Quixote Lives and is as Dangerous as Ever

      Bobbie Boy represents the views of many Americans; idealistic, ignorant, and divorced from reality. Most of this group have the excuse of ignorance as they are too busy with kids, jobs, mistresses, football, and everything else that comes with getting by in the US today. They get their understanding of US foreign policy through tropes created by our leaders, 10 minutes of daily coverage on the evening news, and 24/7 coverage of major news stories by the cable news networks. Bob and his bros, on the other hand, do not have that excuse. He is well albeit selectively read; however, his views are driven by partisanship and worse romanticism.

      As evidenced by his comments here, his two major strategic responses to every conflict in the world are 'send in the troops' and 'partition the country', all the time ignoring the realities resulting from either of those actions. He takes a single fact about a people and assumes it defines the totality. He is willing to easily rationalize corruption wherever it's convenient sometimes simply on the basis that he likes a guy's name. Having not served himself and with no fear that his own family will be affected he is perfectly willing to send other Americans into harms way. He seeks confirmation bias through his selective reading of right wing rags and the agendas of ideologues like Horowitz, Rick Moron, Richard Spencer, and Alan Dershowitz. When he is forced to respond to those who question the hypocrisy and damage this country has caused around the world, he falls back on platitudes or offers up inane rationalizations based on philosophers or literary sources pulled from his years as an English major. He is part of today's version of the 'useful idiot', a category that unfortunately applies to large numbers of people on both the left and the right.

      It's hard to take his views seriously.

      .

      Delete
  21. .

    AshMon Oct 09, 06:11:00 AM EDT
    Deuce's man Trump has surrounded himself with GREAT military men. Why the surprise then that every problem has a military solution?


    The military men Trump chose simply provide background for his photo ops. The more there are in the picture, the more medals they wear, the better. If Trump were allowed to wear a uniform himself, he'd be doing it, likely a blue one with a long red sash and medals up the ass.

    The generals Trump chose are the 'absolute greatest generals in the world' not because of their actual ability but because Trump chose them. Remember, Trump has assured us he knows more than the generals anyway.

    The generals are a prop and a necessary evil for Trump. They stand in opposition to his tweets on most major foreign policy issues, Iran, North Korea, diplomacy versus military intervention, you name it.

    .




    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Generals Quirk and Hawkins are what The Donald and this country really need.

      And Ash to negotiate with North Korea and Iran.

      Delete
  22. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can't recall ever seeing Mad Dog all decked out in medals.

      Bet he'd look good, though.

      Delete
    2. Quirk's back on his quest to stick things up asses again.

      Delete
    3. Dang, I missed the 2:20 out of Truckee.

      Well there's always tomorrow.

      Delete
  23. Is the advertising game a louche enterprise ?
    Opinions welcome.....


    Trump—and Tocqueville?

    For all his bluster, the president has championed values that built America, as Tocqueville saw it.

    Jean M. Yarbrough
    October 8, 2017

    Visiting the United States in 1831, when Andrew Jackson was president, Alexis de Tocqueville was appalled by the “vulgarity and mediocrity” of American politics. After meeting Jackson, Tocqueville concluded that the low tone of American society started at the top. In Tocqueville’s estimation, Jackson was “a man of violent character and middling capacity.” Worse, he seemed to have no talent for politics: he rode “roughshod over his personal enemies” in a way no president had done and treated members of Congress with disdain. “Nothing in all the course of his career had ever proved that he had the requisite qualities to govern a free people,” Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America, “so the majority of the enlightened classes of the Union had always been opposed to him.”

    Considering his view of Jackson, imagine what Tocqueville’s first impressions of President Trump might be. Real-estate mogul, host of The Apprentice, owner of beauty pageants, and backer of WrestleMania, among other louche enterprises, Trump would seem to confirm Tocqueville’s worst fears about debased standards of American public life and leadership. And yet, Trump campaigned on issues that have a Tocquevillean resonance. Put another way, Tocqueville highlighted certain dangers to democratic liberty and greatness that Trump—who, it is safe to assume, has not read Democracy in America—instinctively seized on to win the presidency.

    Start with the most obvious—and contentious—issue: Trump’s campaign pledge to build a wall to stop the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico into the United States.....

    https://www.city-journal.org/html/trump-and-tocqueville-15482.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Quirkie told me several times I was in a loose enterprise.

      Delete
    2. .

      Trump is the ultimate carnie barker and his views of the principles that made America great are like the malformed and dysmorphic reflections in those fun house distortion mirrors.

      .

      Delete
    3. You really, really don't like the guy.

      Delete
  24. October 9, 2017
    Britain leaks battle planning for war North Korea
    By Thomas Lifson

    Great Britain is leaking to the media that it is planning for war with North Korea, signaling to Kim Jong-un that President Trump and our allies are serious about the demands to end the nuclear weapons and missile programs.

    The U.K. Daily Mail reports:


    The Armed Forces are preparing for a potential war with North Korea, sources have revealed.

    Officials have been instructed to draw up plans for how Britain would respond if war broke out with Pyongyang amid heightening tensions between the West and dictator Kim Jong-Un.

    One option involves deploying Britain's new aircraft carrier – due to be handed over to the Navy later this year – to the region before she has undergone flight trials.

    Details of the secret operation plan have emerged after Donald Trump warned that 'only one thing will work' when it comes to dealing with North Korea, which has continued nuclear and rocket tests despite widespread condemnation.

    I am reasonably certain that the leaks are intentional and that the first purpose is to ratchet the pressure up on Kim Jong-un. He knows that the U.S. could defeat and destroy his regime if it comes to war. Should he manage to land a nuclear strike on U.S. forces or territory, the retaliation would be devastating, a lesson to the world on the perils of using nuclear bombs against the U.S.



    No doubt, the few North Korean allowed to read the outside world's media are aware that many of his political opponents, foreign and domestic, consider President Trump mean, irrational, and dangerous. This all works to his psychological advantage.

    What makes this leak so important is that it indicates to Kim that Trump is not being abandoned by his allies. On the contrary, they are lining up.

    In the background for us, but ever present in the mind of Koreans, north and south, is the specter of Japan arming up with nukes and ditching its "peace constitution."

    I expect there to be more leaks, some of them from Japanese sources.

    President Trump has ditched the old ways of dealing with Kim, all of which have failed. This horrifies the diplomatic establishment. As far as I am concerned, that is not a point against him.


    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/10/britain_leaks_battle_planning_for_war_north_korea.html#ixzz4v2QB3T1F

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  25. Please spell Pittsburgh correctly.

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  26. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  27. NAMED FOR WILLIAM PITT

    The official spelling of the city has always been ‘Pittsburgh.’ In 1758 when the British captured Fort Duquesne from the French, they established their own settlement, naming it Fort Pitt after England’s Prime Minister at the time, William Pitt. General Forbes sent a letter to Pitt informing him of the honor they bestowed on him, and the dateline indicated the missive was written on November 27, 1758, and posted from Pittsbourgh.
    Bourgh is a variant of the word borough, meaning a fortified town, and burgh is a Scottish variant of the same name. For instance one might think that Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, should be pronounced ‘Ed-in-burg,’ but actually it is ‘Ed-in-boro.’ Forbes was a Scot, as were many of his men. So it follows that he would dub the city with a Scottish spelling of the name.

    Documents throughout the late 1700s and early 1800s refer to the area as the ‘Manor of Pittsburgh,’ the ‘Town of Pittsburgh’ or the ‘Borough of Pittsburgh.’ The ‘h’ firmly intact in all referrals.

    THE CONTROVERSY

    As the old song says, ‘Little Things Mean a Lot,’ and that is certainly true when it comes to the correct spelling of Pittsburgh. Why the confusion? It stems from a controversy that occurred nearly 100 years ago when the ‘h’ was nixed. When Pittsburgh was being incorporated as a city in 1816, a printer’s error dropped the ‘h’ from the end, even though the original city charter included it. Throughout the rest of the 1800s ‘Pittsburg’ without the ‘h’ turned up here and there in newspapers and other printed material, but official documents always retained the ‘h.’ Pittsburgh with the ‘h’ was the most common spelling; and it seemed no one much cared about the occasional misspelling, for a while.

    The true challenge came at the end of the 19th century. As the country expanded and technology evolved, the need for standardization arose. In 1890, the United States Board of Geographic Names, which was created to bring consistency to the spellings of locations throughout the country, deemed that all cities ending in ‘burgh’ must drop the ‘h’ in the spirit of uniformity.

    The board even went to so far as to insert a special section in their report citing Pittsburg’s erroneously printed charter documents of 1816 as being correct and stating that the ‘h’ had been added by the post office, multiplying the confusion.

    No matter who was to blame, the board’s action set off a controversy that would rage for 21 years. Although city ordinances and council minutes from those years show that the ‘h’ was retained in all official documents, several newspapers conformed to the directive of the U.S. Board of Geographic Names.

    Some residents were pleased with the decision, but the majority was not.

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  28. As to my egregious faux pas, I will share the blame with my overzealous spell-check but take final responsibility for lazy editing.

    Let the record show, that I hoisted the terrible towel upside down and the banner stands corrected.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Columbus Day Question: Was Colonialism Inherently Evil Or Racist?
    JAZZ SHAWPosted at 8:41 pm on October 9, 2017

    Since half of the country is trying to save Christopher Columbus from being erased with the rest of our history and the other half is busy trying to tear him down as a genocidal war criminal, Columbus Day offers a chance to contemplate that era in history. I was reminded of this when reading a piece at the Washington Post about a journal which published and later retracted (deleted, erased, wiped from history) a paper arguing in favor of the merits of colonialism.

    Bruce Gilley, a political science professor from Portland State University, penned the paper, “The Case for Colonialism” which was published at Third World Quarterly. After coming under fire from outraged academics for roughly a month it was recently pulled.

    Bruce Gilley’s essay argued that countries that were colonized by Western powers “did better” than those that were not. He also said that colonialism was generally “beneficial” and “subjectively legitimate.” The essay’s abstract said: “For the last 100 years, Western colonialism has had a bad name. It is high time to question this orthodoxy.”

    Some scholars immediately decried the article as racist and others disliked it because they said it was based on faulty data. It was published at a time when several cities, including Los Angeles and Minneapolis, have opted not to mark Columbus Day because of its colonialism overtones and instead celebrate indigenous people. There’s also a push in some cities for the removal of Columbus statues.

    Lacking a copy of the original essay, let’s explore the underlying question. Was colonialism in the age of exploration ultimately justifiable, producing a better end result for the colonized lands than what they could have expected were they left in isolation? Was it, in the long view, generally beneficial and subjectively legitimate? Or was it simply an excuse to engage in slavery, slaughter, rape and wanton plundering?

    I’ve been pondering it for a while now and if you think there’s a crystal clear answer to that general line of inquiry (no matter which answer you pick) I’m not sure you’ve got it all figured out.

    On the one hand, it’s pretty much impossible to argue that the immediate, short term result for the less technologically advanced people being “discovered” and colonized was pretty much uniformly awful. You could be talking about indigenous peoples of North and South America, South Africa, Australia or even India in the early days of British Colonization. Those who acceded to the newcomers too quickly were frequently enslaved or at least driven off their lands. Those who resisted fought ruinous wars where superior technology generally crushed them. What little they had of value was frequently plundered and God help you if you had a stockpile of gold you’d beaten into some ornaments. Even if none of those things were happening at any given moment, new, exotic diseases they had no natural immunity to wiped them out in droves.

    So colonialism was abjectly bad, right?

    Well… it was almost always bad for the natives in the short run. But what of Gilley’s premise that over the long haul the colonized lands “did better?” I’m thinking of the condition that the native people of the Americas were in when Europeans began arriving in significant numbers to stay. (We’ll skip over whether or not the Vikings were here first. But they probably were.) One of the most remarkable things about the indigenous people in the western hemisphere is how little technological progress they had made despite having had at least tens of thousands (and some argue hundreds of thousands) of years of cultural evolution opportunities.

    The people here were still living in the stone age. None of them had figured out how to......

    https://hotair.com/archives/2017/10/09/columbus-day-question-colonialism-inherently-evil-racist/

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    Replies
    1. From reading some of the comments, this topic appears to be a sensitive, even hurtful, subject.

      Delete
  30. THE ENGLISHNESS OF H-DROPPING
    Posted on June 2, 2012 by Ben Direct blog

    HLongtime readers may notice that I rarely discuss h-dropping. Novices might remember this accent feature from some unfortunate community theatre production of ‘My Fair Lady‘ in which the actress playing Eliza Doolittle bleats ”enry ‘iggins!’ Systematic h-droppers drop the letter ‘h’ at the beginning of words and syllables.

    The feature is often mentioned as a divider between middle-class and working-class speech in the UK. It is notoriously common among speakers of Cockney, but appears all over the country, extending to Northern English cities such as Manchester. And it is perhaps the fact that h-dropping occurs in so many parts of England that I give it less thought. In some ways, it’s not dissimilar from the tendency for American urban accents to render ‘them’ and ‘those’ as ‘dem’ and ‘dose:’ Because such pronunciation are found in so many regions, one is hesitant to say they intrinsically belong to any.

    For example, someone from Manchester might pronounce the sentence ‘Harry’s right here‘ with both /h/’s dropped:

    ‘arry’s right here!

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    1. .

      'arry's right here!

      :o)

      As henry Higgins would probably say...

      "I don't think he's got it. By George, I don't think he's finally got it!"

      .

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  31. Even the Trump family has become a flash point. On Monday, the president's first and third wives — Ivana and Melania, respectively — engaged in a public spat.

    In an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" to promote her new book, "Raising Trump," Ivana Trump, the mother of the president's three eldest children, said: "I'm basically first Trump wife. Okay? I'm first lady."

    The actual first lady, Melania Trump, did not let the slight go unanswered. Her spokeswoman at the White House, Stephanie Grisham, issued a statement dismissing Ivana's comments as "attention-seeking and self-serving noise."

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  32. It's the Q droppers that get me.

    "uirk, come to me again sweetie"

    Felony

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  33. .

    Well, it's obvious old Jack K doesn't work for the US Board of Geographic Names.

    .

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