So, the Biden (Mis) Administration, or whoever and whatever powers have the strings firmly attached to the puppet in the Oval Office seems determined to pick a fight and a war with Russia over the Ukraine. A fight in which most Americans might have some mild-to-moderate sympathies with the Ukrainians, as they were most viciously abused under Soviet rule, having the misfortune to be essentially the breadbasket of the Soviet Union and relatively unwilling to have their crops and livelihoods confiscated for the good of the Party of the Workers, and having in the interim since the fall of the Iron Curtain to have developed some pesky notions of a separate and rather rebellious national identity. The Ukraine, like Poland, is luckless geographically, in being the pathway of invading armies from either direction, so one can’t really blame them for being a little testy and proactive about another one.
But it’s not really our fight, and it seems to be one constructed in a Potemkin village fashion.
There was a story, most likely apocryphal regarding a proposed alliance sometime during the late 19th century, between (IIRC) Britain and France, likely against a bellicose Germany, wherein a high-level British diplomat and his equally high-level French counterpart began pounding out the details of the proposed military alliance. The British diplo asked his French counterpart; what would be the absolute minimum number of troops that Britain would contribute to the situation in an emergency in the case of German invasion. “Only one,” replied the French diplomat, “And we would make certain that he would be killed at once.”
That is what the Biden administration would like, apparently. They would like to be able to wave the bloody shirt, the blood-saturated BDU blouses of American military personnel as a cynical and calculated distraction from a year of epic fail. More »
Well, it’s somewhere, among the albums.
The base at Hellenikon was often under siege and sometimes physically so; before, during and after I was stationed there in the early 1980s; regularly once a year when the local national employees went on strike, and blockaded the front gate, and now and again by anti-US and anti-NATO protesters. Although there was a Greek Air Force installation right next to the American base, there was no passage between the two, unlike the base at Zaragoza, where Spanish and American personnel had pretty much free passage between their respective halves of the facility. In the case of striking workers, or hostile protestors at the main – and only entrance – those of us inside the base were stuck there, while those outside were also cut off. Only one year did it become a problem lasting more than a single day – but it was an inconvenience for us all, and particularly frightening for family members.
And I was remembering all of that, this weekend, reading about how Incirlik Air Base – which also used to be called Adana Air Base – was cut off for about a day this weekend, after having commercial power cut off for nearly a week by Turkish civil authorities, in the wake of an attempted coup against a president who strong-armed himself into office by side-stepping the established rules. Because of the deteriorating situation in Turkey, all family members were ordered out at the end of March, 2016; a NEO evacuation, as it used to be and still is termed, for Non-combatant Evacuation Operation. (I used to have to keep current paperwork for an escort for my daughter, in the case of one of these; she would travel with various friends who would deposit her eventually with my parents, while I would stay behind.) Months before, the military quietly stopped facilitating accompanied tours to Incirlik. Currently, according to the bases’ own website, there are about 1,400 American military personnel serving there, with another 400 civilian employees. The dependent schools, teen center, child care center – all are closed; presumably the various employees of same are either evacuated themselves, or enjoying a nice vacation.
Incirlik’s mission and that of the 39th Air Base Wing is, according to the bases’ website, “to help protect U.S. and NATO interests in the Southern Region by providing a responsive staging and operational air base ready to project integrated, forward-based air power.†Part of this mission also includes a store of nuclear weapons. The base website is naturally, non-committal about this aspect of their mission. Even if there aren’t any such weapons in the bomb dump at Incirlik, likely there are all kinds of interesting munitions and weapons. Which is all very good and well – but Turkey’s President Erdogan has been loudly accusing the US – and the former USAF commander of Incirlik – of plotting and assisting with the failed coup. The commander of the Turkish Air Force assets at Incirlik is reported to have asked the US for asylum, which was refused; the man is now under arrest, as part of the purge of Erdogan’s political enemies. I have read here and there that those American military assigned to the base are confined to the base itself; considering Erdogan’s incendiary accusations, probably a wise move.
As for what now – like Will Rogers of blessed memory, all I know is what I read in the newspaper, or on-line at various sites. But the nightmare visioning that woke me up several times this weekend was of a full-on mob attack on Incirlik’s American sector, on the order of the Benghazi consulate writ large, and with even more weapons and determination … and with the tacit encouragement of Erdogan’s government and Islamist allies.
So much for being a NATO ally. And since our State Department did very little in the case of the Benghazi attack, save for blaming it all afterwards on a mysterious video that hardly anyone had heard of … can one count on the DoD being all that proactive in the event of a serious attack on Incirlik AB? Discuss.
Adrift without a map, we are, in the sea of current events. Especially after this last week, which brought us a ground war in Gaza and the shoot-down of a passenger airliner over Ukraine; both situations a little out of the depth of the past experience of Chicago community organizer, even one who spent his grade school years in Indonesia. Quite a large number of the blogs and commenters that I follow have speculated over the last couple of months – at least since last year – have predicted disaster. They know not the day nor the hour, but they have read the various augurs according to their inclinations, suspicions and particular expertise, and gloomily speculate on the odds of various events occurring. There is something bad coming, the air is thick and heavy with signs and portents, never mind the cheery cast that the current administration and it’s public affairs division attempts to put on it. It’s like a makeup artist, plying the art on a six-months-dead corpse; it’s just not working.
The list of possible events speculated on begins with some kind of dirty nuke on a major (or even a relatively minor) American city, or other terrorist act, sustained racial riots in inner cities leading to violent resistance when the rioters spill out into the fringes, an epidemic caused by the recent accession of thousands of Central American illegal aliens and the administrations energetic dispersion of them everywhere, violent resistance to any number of ham-handed actions on the part of the federal government spiraling out of control as in the BLM-Bundy Ranch scenario, complete devaluing of the currency to the point of a ten-dollar bill having the value of a used bus ticket – I can come up with any number of issues which might potentially provide a flashpoint, and commentators likely can come up with as many more, even as we grimly acknowledge that the ignition point might be one which we won’t even see coming.
Today, Governor Perry of Texas announced plans to send 1,000 National Guard troops to the border area – an area which has always been about as porous as a wet sponge, but which troubled no one much beyond those law enforcement in border counties, and residents whose ranch properties were essentially highways for the human traffic. The trickle of illegal immigrants (take THAT, PC Police, they’re illegal immigrants!) has become a gusher in the last year or so, and many on the conservative-libertarian spectrum suspect that it has been deliberately engineered, in an effort to Cloward-Piven our national borders. Darker prognostications have it that this is an attempt to stuff the ballot-boxes with sufficient voters to ensure a Democrat Party majority for the foreseeable future, to destroy the working- and middle-class – who have the ungrateful habit of independency and a disinclination to do as their so-called betters order them – and replace them with grateful serfs who will obediently do as they are told. How better to dissolve the people and replace them another?
There was a protest scheduled last Friday and Saturday – at the Mexican Consulate in San Antonio. It was a rather small one, when I passed by on Friday afternoon, and if the protest continued as scheduled on Saturday, I can find no evidence for it – but then, seeing how frequently the establishment media organs function as the public office of the Obama administration, I wouldn’t have been surprised to know that the protest was continued, and with more protesters – just that the local news coverage was of the “close your eyes, cover them with your hands and hope it will all go away†variety. One thing I did notice on Friday was that the protestors were raising the issue of Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, who inadvertently crossed over into Mexico at a particularly confusing San Diego freeway interchange earlier this summer. He had his personal weapons in the trunk of his car – and has been in a Mexican jail ever since, accused of smuggling guns into Mexico. I imagine that the Mexican authorities are feeling the schadenfreude, on account of Fast and Furious, but I haven’t seen much enthusiasm on the part of our State Department on getting him out of durance vile, Mexican-style … so every little bit of street theater may help.
Discuss.
(Crossposted at Chicagoboyz.net)
So this one time at Camp Pendelton, there was a Marine in my section and he had a bad day.(Found out that his wife had been sleeping with his best friend and she took the kids and split.)
Our wise SNCO called all of us NCOs into his office and said , “We needed to help this Marine out and make sure he does not hurt himself.”
So three of us were volun-told to get over to his house ASAP and take away and hide all of the things that he could hurt himself with (just in case).
I drew the short straw and got the knives, so I took note of all the sharpest and most lethal and packed them up to go to the armory. Then I hid the rest in plain sight.
Long story short he didn’t hurt himself… and he never found the knives I had hidden in plain view. He got out of the military, moved and never found them.
So I guess the moral is*if there is one*you’re not having a really shitty day—
unless I show up and hide your flatware!
The story of Abdul Rahman is one that needs to be screamed at the top of our lungs to the highest heavens.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — In the days of the Taliban, those promoting Christianity in Afghanistan could be arrested and those converting from Islam could be tortured and publicly executed.
That was supposed to change after U.S.-led forces ousted the oppressive, fundamentalist regime, but the case of 41-year-old Abdul Rahman has many Western nations wondering if Afghanistan is regressing.
Rahman, a father of two, was arrested and is on trial for rejecting Islam. The Afghan constitution, which is based on Sharia, or Islamic law, says that apostates can receive the death penalty.
Look. I don’t care if he converted from Christianity to Islam, Islam to Christianity, or Church of the Sub-Genius to Scientology. I have a real hard time accepting that a country we “liberated” from the Taliban is still able to legally kill one of their citizens because he’s changed religions.
WTF have we been fighting for if not to do away with this sort of bullshit?
Update: The Shape of Days has news of a rally at the Afghan Embassy on Friday.
…but I’ve had a little time to catch up on the news and I’m confused about something.
Taking off my glasses and pinching the bridge of my nose:
Another unknown scum-sucking traitorous bastard (or bitch, I want to be politically correct) turns over classified information to the press. The press holds onto this information until things are looking good, no, great in Iraq with an amazing turnout for the elections, something we should all be feeling good about and celebrating. The press then releases that classified information, embarassing the United States, completely destroying an ongoing intelligence operation, letting our enemies know that our civil liberties are no longer a cover for their operations.
The story from all the media outlets is that the President ordered the electronic surveillance of Americans (whispering) who are in contact with terrorists overseas?
The story isn’t the ongoing scum-sucking traitorous actions of people who believe that releasing classified information is okay and that our press continues to sell us out to our enemies?
And unless I’m mistaken, the same people who are currently beating up the President for being over-zealous about protecting our country are the exact same people who have been blaming him for not being zealous enough about protecting our country from the attacks on 9-11-01.
Do I have that right?
Because if I have that right, I think I’m going to get ready to retire soon. My country has gone batshit crazy.
And yes, IF the President acted illegally then the Senate should have exercised their powers of oversite and done THEIR FREAKING JOB and they should have done it quietly so as not to embarass the country and ruin the intelligence that may have been gathered. This was a bullshit hit job on the administration for purely political purposes and it didn’t do anyone any good what so ever.
Update: If you want to read and mess around with the various legal arguments, head over to Protein Wisdom. Goldstein has a real good wrap-up. Start at the top of the page and scroll down, because some of it’s just plain funny.
Yesterday, our Secretary of State, Condolezza Rice, visited the nation of Sudan as part of her Africa tour. According to Fox News in this story, members of her entourage were roughed up, not once but several times, during a visit to the Sudanese President’s compound. This angered Ms. Rice, as it well should have, and I’m sure that Sudan will pay for this incident in many ways.
That whole African continent, for the most part, is ruled by thugs, criminals, and outright terrorists, not the sort of place that I want my tax dollars going. I would be much in favor of the US government doing a deep, healthy review of our giveaway policies. I’ve always favored holding onto our dollars until AMERICANS are fed, housed, and cared for. We seem to just give away money to anyone outside our own country with a hand outstretched, while we have homeless veterans, starving children whose single mothers have no education, no help, and no hope, as well as elderly folks who have to choose between food, medicine, or a roof over their heads! Come on, Mr. President, come on, congress! Let’s do something to help our own, and maybe then we can help those foreigners who want to share in our bounty. I have nothing at all against that kind of prioritization.
And we should squeeze extremely tightly on the nutz (if existant) of those idiots in Sudan who dared to insult our nation by putting their filthy hands on our SECSTATE’s staff and PA folks!