What Is Frightening?

That the things I have been worrying about since the President drew his bold red line have been echoed by Laughing Wolf over on Black Five.  It is sobering to know someone else has been comparing the sitting President with the fictional Robert 'Bob' Fowler from Clancy's Sum of All Fears and finding the real President wanting in comparison.

Or the alliances in the region are mobilizing in much the same way they did in 1914 in Sarajevo.  One madman kills a noble that almost no one knew about and the gears of war started to turn as all the years of treaties came into effect as Austria tried to browbeat Serbia into giving up the assassin.  So the Serbs called in their Russian allies while Austria called in Germany.  And it just escalated from there.  What resulted from all of that smart diplomacy was four years of brutal carnage that killed millions and set the stage for a greater conflict.

An even more brutal question to ask will there be a US lead alliance in regards to the murky issue of who gassed whom in Syria?  The British Parliament just said no to Prime Minister Cameron's request for supporting the Americans, the first time they have said no since 1782 and the American Revolution.  The French and Germans are going soft as well; they should when it concerns American consistency, they just have to look at the series of slights and insults this Administration has delivered to England along with betraying European missile defense for a nebulous promise from Russia.  A Russia that supplies Europe with a majority of the natural gas it will need to stay warm this winter.  A Russia that supports the Assad regime in Damascus.  Europe sees more downsides than upsides for joining the American charge.

Then there are the Middle Eastern nations to look at.  Iran likes Assad in power and has threatened Israel if the US attacks.  Saudi Arabia finds itself wanting Assad in power in order to keep the Muslim Brotherhood out of power.  Saudi Arabia is also supporting the current government in Egypt for the same reason - fear of the Muslim Brotherhood.  And the United States, because of the decisions of this Administration, finds itself in opposition to Saudi Arabia, a long time ally, and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood both in Egypt and Syria.  Turkey has refused to assist the United States in regards to Syria so Greece had to be asked to allow the US to use Greek air bases.

If this is not a powder keg with a fuse lit, then I do not know what is.  And for what reason is the US getting involved when there are no geo-political reasons that can protect American interests?  Because of one reported attack on civilians by someone using chemical weapons.  No one knows if it really was Assad's forces that did it or even the rebels themselves that did it by accident.  This is far worse in murkiness than when USS Turner Joy thought it was being attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats.  But we have a President who said this was a Red Line even though in the past when Saddam used nerve agents on Kurds or Assad's father obliterated a town with artillery to stop a Muslim Brotherhood insurgency no one protested so loudly that these heinous attacks were used as reasons to depose either tyrant.

As Laughing Wolf said, we are going to be held hostage to the least stable actor in this drama.  Isn't that a cheery thought.  So if you are a devout praying person, please pray harder.



Addendum on the parallels from 1914.
There is the diplomatic war that was fought in concert with the war effort.  England wanted the neutral powerhouse the United States to enter the war on their side.  Wilson became President in no small part because he promised to keep the country neutral to the conflict that was devouring Europe so people with similar feelings voted for him. 

Churchill as First Sea Lord engaged in stratagems that are a bit shabby and dishonest viewed from this end of history; from painting British ships in American colors to putting war materials aboard passenger liners, but what he wanted was England to emerge victorious.  Meanwhile the Royal Navy was hunting German U-boats where they could.  All these actions forced Germany to abandon the cruiser rules and turn to unrestricted warfare on the open seas against any ship they found. 

So the German U-boats became wolves prowling for kills.  Any kills.  It was scant comfort to the families of the dead from these attacks that Germany had followed the rules of war by announcing a zone around England where unrestricted warfare would be prosecuted.  The Huns in the U-boats were now butchers.  The same was not used to describe German commerce raiders but those ships did not skulk below and strike from hiding, instead they still operated under the cruiser rules and treated their captured as well as could be expected.

Another arrow in the cap that helped tilt American opinion in favor of England was a master stroke of counter-espionage by British spooks.  I am referring to the famous Zimmerman telegram where Germany's Foreign Minister tried to entice Mexico into attacking the United States.  That really incensed the American public when it became news and further destroyed any warm feelings that sections of the populace felt towards Germany.

The sinking of the RMS Lusitania was just the final act that brought the US into WWI on the British side.  While the US tried to stay out of the war, events conspired against the President that stripped him of any freedom of action.  And that is how the United States entered World War I on the side of the Serbian assassin since England was an ally of the Russians who were the ally of the Serbs who sheltered the assassin.

Boston Marathon

Words can not adequately express the grief and the soul wrenching hurt such events create.  All I can think of are the people who's lives have been shattered with the loss of loved ones or loss of limb.  All because some coward had to strike at innocent people for a sick and twisted cause.

To work through this I have created a simple slideshow.  I am not sure if what I did is any good.  But I wanted to show how the marathon was before the dreadful explosions and some may disagree with some images.  But I felt this was how to do it.  There are no high value special tansitions or fades, just a timeline progression.

Here is the version that runs under VLC and Windows Media Player.  Its a 5MB .wmv file.

The music I chose is composed by Yoko Kanno for the Ghost In The Shell movie Solid State Society.  The song is called Aramaki's Theme.

Drone Debate

Sen. Rand Paul [R-KY] just concluded an almost 13 hour long filibuster of the US Senate. This filibuster has delayed the confirmation by the full Senate of Brennan to head the CIA. The reason why Sen. Rand spoke, with able assistance for 13 hours, is very simple as he wants a simple answer to a very serious question.

Sen. Paul wants to know if the Obama administration, via the CIA that Brennan is nominated to head, is willing to use drones to kill American citizens on American soil without the due process of the law. Yes or no, that is all Sen. Paul wanted to know.

The response he got from Attorney General Eric Holder can be charitably called a 'maybe' answer. Two strawmen were brought out by Holder in his answer – Pearl Harbor and 9/11. There is a simple logical fault in using these two examples, neither attack was carried out by American citizens. Unlike Hassan Nidal at Ft. Hood or Timothy McVeigh at Oklahoma City.

In the case of Nidal and McVeigh, regular means were used to apprehend the killers. A routine traffic stop detained McVeigh long enough for them to connect the rental truck VIN to him. Nidal was bodily tackled and stopped in his killing spree.

So this administration wants a blank check to determine if an American citizen is an imminent danger. Without recourse to the American judicial system to rule if they have enough evidence to make such a finding. And then to send a remote control aircraft to kill that American citizen. Let me rephrase that, this administration wants to have the ability to assassinate American citizens on US soil without any oversight.

If you are not disturbed at that thought, just contemplate the government getting bad intelligence and sending out a drone on that information. Remember that wedding party in Iraq that American aircraft bombed by accident? Now imagine that happening on Main St in Peoria, IL – a drone fires a Hellfire missile at someone's SUV. Its noon in Peoria. The Hellfire hits and detonates, exploding the gas tank for good measure. Besides Betty Sue and her twin girls getting murdered because of bad information, how many people in the surrounding area just got killed or maimed also.

Now do you think armed drones over the US is such a good idea?

P.S. You may want to look up a movie from the 1980s called 'Blue Thunder' with Roy Scheider. LAPD is loaned a new helicopter. An armed helicopter that can also spy. Scheider's character Murphy finds out the organization supplying Blue Thunder has an ulterior motive of eliminating domestic threats. This administration is trying to replace Blue Thunder with something almost like a video game, just press the R1 on your X-Box controller to fire a Hellfire missile to blow up the target and get Achievement Points which is now a medal that can be worn between the Silver Star and Bronze Star.

Benghazi

The more I learn of the failings by the Obama administration over Benghazi, the more enraged I become.

The tactical usefulness of a live video feed over the compound would have been worth that drone's weight in gold.  The rescue squad could have been directed in real time as to where the bad guys where and even possibly where the mortars were so they could be neutralized.

For the rescue squad to be told to stand down and for them to disobey those orders. That is far far worse.  It signals this administration is willing to write people off and not even try.  The bad optics for this administration would have been a failed rescue mission it seems.  This shows how out of touch these people are with normal people.  The American public would have forgiven a quick rescue attempt even if it failed because it would have shown this administration was willing to risk all to safeguard American lives.

Instead we have gotten weeks of lies.  Senior administration officials lying to grieving families.  Obama and his people have told deliberate lies on the world stage including the UN.  And as a result another man has been deprived his freedom, the producer of a video which has now been shown not to have ignited this deadly ambush.  He still sits in a jail cell and even if he is released there is a good chance someone will try to murder him and his family for that video.

Obama and all of his malicious toadies need to be swept out of office.

LBJ and Obama

President Lyndon B. Johnson once boasted that they - 7th Air Force in Saigon - could not bomb an outhouse without his permission.

President Barack H. Obama boasts that no terrorist on his kill list can be killed by a drone without him taking it seriously.

Words fail me on how to comment on this.

Uganda?

So the United States, under the leadership of President Obana, is sending 100 troops to Uganda and surrounding countries to battle the Lord's Resistance Army. I agree they are not a nice group of folks, after all they use child soldiers in their cause.

Though I do have to ask a question on this matter. Why? Uganda nor the Lord's Resistance Army pose any credible threat to the national security interests of the United States. Actually I have another question to ask, has the Obama administration thought things through. As in what if these US soldiers are attacked by the LRA - what will the United States do?

I will take a stab at answering the questions I posed above. Uganda was picked because the LRA is a pretty ugly crowd so the mission can be wrapped up as a moral crusade to stamp out a scourge. The LRA was also picked because it was an easy low-hanging fruit with supposedly low adverse risks.

Now has Obama thought what to do if the LRA escalates and attacks US forces resulting in wounded and dead. Judging by Obama's handling of Libya, the answer is probably no. Which means the Pentagon's contingency plans for that event will catch the Obama administration with a deer in the headlights moment as the White House flounders for a response. Which will further degrade the concept of the United States being a trustworthy and competent player on the international stage.

Azazel in Baghdad

Jim Lacey at National Review has a very informative article on the continuing danger Saddam Hussein posed. From biological weapons to suicide bombers to supporting terror groups.

When American tanks smashed into Baghdad, Saddam had already completed construction of an anthrax production facility, which was a week away from going live.

Another nearby lab was busily working on cowpox vaccines, with the exact same equipment necessary to create smallpox.

Other WMD scientists told investigators that they had the materials and equipment to start mustard-gas production in days.

Read the article. Hussein and his murderous government were a menance to their population and to the world at large. The Earth is a far better place without him.

Germany Gets A Clue

This is heartening news from Germany. Due to the continued onslaught of pirates attacking their shipping, they want to arm security guards and put them on ships in high risk areas. I say its well past time for this to happen. I would suggest one small change and avoid some legal entanglements with private security guards, use the German army instead. An MG-3 going through 800 rounds a minute can take the starch out of any would-be pirates.

What I fail to understand is the worries of the International Maritime Organization. The IMO fears putting armed security guards on merchant ships would be an escalation. I hate to tell you IMO but the Somali pirates escalated this mess first. They are the ones who are costing shipping companies large sums of money plus putting the crews into virtual slavery until they are ransomed. On second thought, lets up-gun from the MG-3 and put an actual naval cannon on the fantail, 105mm should do. Along with the German army troops who would also get to see some of the world.

9/11 Hate

The above is some of the commentary posted in response to this photo that captures the instant Flight 175 crashes into the South Tower of the WTC and the North Tower already burns. Ten years on and the hate is still fierce.

He Doth Object Too Much?

There is so much wrong with this story, where to begin? I will stick with the facts instead.

In June 2011 Mr. Abdo was granted conscientious objector status by the US Army. Mr. Abdo had claimed after studying the Qu'ran and Islamic law that he could not fight in Afghanistan or Iraq. Then on the weekend of July 4th Mr. Abdo went absent without leave [AWOL] from Ft. Campbell KY after being charged with possession of child pornography. He was arrested near Ft. Hood, TX in his motel room. A citizen called in to police saying a man had smokeless gunpowder and other items in his hotel room. Mr. Abdo is now in jail in Kileen TX on the child porn charges. FBI does not think anyone else was involved.

Time for soapbox rant. I think the US military should boot out anyone who asks for conscientous objector status. They should be treated worse than anyone who has failed basic training. A thank you letter for trying and nothing else, no benefits or GI Bill. Zilch. After all they volunteered to join and then got cold feet. Being a weak sister should not be rewarded in any way with benefits or even a Entry Level Seperation. Rant off.

July 29, 2011 Update - Adbo in his court apperance on charges of possessing an unregistered destructive device gave a shout out for Nidal Hassan, the butcher of Ft. Hood. Firing squad sounds like a good idea for both pieces of filth.

Calculus of Hate

Friends, countrymen, Norwegians lend me your ears. I come here not to praise Anders but to dissect his evil.

-- I am writing this as details keep emerging or even change. Perchance the manifesto is fiction, but right now it is held as sacred writ for Anders' evil.

First we must shake loose our own conceptions of right and wrong. Anders operates under a different set of right and wrong in which only he knows the ultimate truth. When Anders talks of Cultural Communism, Cultural Marxism, and how fragmented leftism is; even though the words are cribbed from the Unabomber, Anders writes as if he knows such a higher truth and must convey it to others. This belief also drives why Anders surrendered himself and did not take his own life or allow himself to be killed by the police, he is the messenger of this truth and through his court appearance he thinks he will spread this message so that others can learn this truth.

What is this truth of Anders? That I am still grappling over since all we really have is some suspicious Facebook pages, the above mentioned manifesto, and a video of unknown provenance. Because of the doubts on the first and last pieces of evidence, perforce I must base my reasoning on the manifesto. It seems Anders was a very ordinary little Norwegian boy living in a safe bubble until a Muslim friend cheered at the news of missile strikes against American forces during Desert Storm, that was when his world view seemed to change he writes in the manifesto. It also seems he saw the Labor Party, a center-right political party that his parents supported, had been infiltrated by Marxists. If the manifesto is true then perhaps there lays the seeds of his mission.

I say mission because that is what Anders wants to believe he has embarked upon I think. All the talk of Templars, Marxists, and retaking Europe from unappreciative immigrants plays to Anders' desire to matter. An unspectacular though privileged childhood, father being a diplomat, only marred by a divorce he does not remember. And a seemingly uneventful adulthood in safe Norway also awaited him. So perhaps he latches on the few troubles or hangups he had in childhood and reinvents himself as a crusader to right wrongs he perceives in the system. Initially it seems he does try to work within the existing political system when he was part of the Progress Party. When that failed it seems a new crusade was truly born. The Labor Party was not ever going to acknowledge any sort of problem with immigrants even as the Muslims looted and raped while he might have felt abandoned by the Progress Party.

This is possibly Anders' motivation, but how best to strike a blow that supports this motivation. And to get the message out since he has so far found no one to believe him. Again lets look at the manifesto. It seems since he left the Progress Party so quietly they did not even notice he left. To further his now self-appointed mission he set up various schemes to acquire what he thinks is the last recourse against tyranny - the tools of violence. That is how he legally acquires the firearms and chemicals used in the bomb that blew up in Oslo.

The last step is perhaps the hardest to stomach. The government buildings in Oslo, for any terrorist from the right to the left end of the political spectrum, would be legitimate targets. So why the Labor party youth camp on Utoya then? Anders sees himself as saving Norway from the pollution of immigration, the Labor Party of his parents supports this immigration, and this camp is for the teenagers of people belonging to the Labor Party. So in that sort of calculus, attacking a camp full of future Labor members who will continue the policies Anders abhors makes perfect sense.

So Anders has attacked at what he thinks of as his enemies' soft spot. He wants the attention from such infamy. Hence he allowed himself to be taken alive. So he can continue to expose the Labor party, its enabling of multiculturalism, and its ideological blindness to the menace of unassimilated Muslims as the tool of Norway's destruction.

Now does it make sense, when viewed from Anders' very much off kilter point of view. He is not insane, he just has a mission and those poor teens at Utoya were pawns in his game to save Norway.

And now I am going to go and try to scrub that twisted thinking out of my skull. Rum&coke sounds good.

Leftist Tolerance

As a result of the Wisconsin legislature's late night passing of a bill that reduced the stranglehold unions have in that state over the public coffers, we get the following love message -

Please put your things in order because you will be killed and your families will also be killed due to your actions in the past 8 weeks. Please explain to them that this is because if we get rid of you and your families then it will save the rights of 300,000 people and also be able to close the deficit that you have created. I hope you have a good time in hell. Read below for more information on possible scenarios in which you will die.

This my friends is domestic terrorism. The sender of this email is a terrorist. Their cause is to keep public unions in power, though they dress it up as being for the people. Lenin claimed his actions were to save the people from the Tsars, he still used thugs to intimidate moderates and thus the brief spring of Kerensky gave way to 70 years of communist winter. And lets also recognize this terrorist is threatening the families of these legislators. Another tactic of communists, I am reminded of Tet and what happened in the ancient capitol of Hue. The Viet Cong killed this whole family - father, mother, children, and even killed the goldfish. Whomever this terrorist is, I really do hope the sword of justice is used on them. What they are advocating is beyond the pale, their actions need to be punished switfly and with due thoroughness.

Americans Killed Off Somalia

This is horrible news. The four Americans who had been kidnapped by Somali pirates are dead. It seems one of the pirates fired an RPG at the USS Sterett which was trailing the yacht Quest by 600 yards. Then gunfire erupted aboard the yacht and when US forces got aboard, all four were dead. As for the monsters who did this; 4 are dead and 15 are prisoners. According to V. Adm. Fox, CO 5th Fleet one of the pirates died due to knife wounds inflicted by a US special forces soldier. And since the pirates had vowed to never let prisoners go living and seem to have carried out that threat; the 15 live pirates need a summary court aboard Sterett, convicted, and dumped overboard.

Egypt Down the Hole

Are we heading to another 444 days of shame? It does seem so. Obama sends a former ambassador of Egypt to privately talk with Hosni and today Hosni gets on the TV and says he has no plans to run in September but is staying on until then. And this is followed by President Obama giving a live non-specific speech that does not support in any way Mubarak.

It does seem we are repeating Iran, the Shah, and 1979 again. Wait until the Suez Canal is closed to traffic until increased 'transit fees' are paid. Check your supplies, see what debts are paid off, and in general be prepared. There are major potholes in our collective future.

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Ozymandius
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Lebanon Government Falls

To add to the tense atmosphere in the Middle East, Hezbollah and its allies have pulled out of the coalition government that has been running Lebanon for the past 14 months. The primary cause seems to be the Rafik Hariri assasination report which points an accusing finger at Hezbollah and Syria. And the walk out happened as Hariri's son Saad was meeting with President Obama. The Hezbollah ministers make pious sounding noises over why they pulled out, but its all about them running Lebanon and not the Lebanese people. Expect things like attacks on northren Israel to ramp up plus other mischief.

New Year, Same Terror

For those only now recovering from the New Year celebrations, terrorists have rung in the new year with their idea of fireworks. Twenty-one Coptic Christians were killed in a bomb blast in Alexandria Egypt outside a church. Seventy-one Copts and eight Muslims were injured in the vicious and cowardly attack. President Mubarak of Egypt vows to fight the 'foreign hands' behind the attack. The Copt population in Egypt is seething over the attack. Pope Benedict in Rome has condemned the attack.

Hugs&Kisses, Anarchists/Terrorists

Europe's home grown shirkers and wastrels are venting their anger again over their right to other people's money being reduced. Due to Greek austerity measures and tuition hikes in Italy, the malcontents are making their grievances known in their usual petulant and violent way. This time just before Christmas the Swiss and Chilean embassies in Rome received two packages that detonated and inured two people. All other embassies in Rome are on heightened alert along with the whole city as the investigation continues.

American Killed In Israel

An American woman visiting Jerusalem and a British ex-pat were attacked by two Arab men. It seems it might have been a case of mistaken identity since the Arabs spoke Hebrew and Kaye Wilson replied in Hebrew. So the Arabs apparently followed up on Hezbollah's admonishment to kill the Jews and attacked thinking the women were Jewish. Savages.

"All of a sudden two Arabs walked by and they asked me in Hebrew if I had any water. So I said, dismissively, 'see ya'. But I immediately felt that something was wrong," Wilson told Israel's Channel Two TV from her hospital bed.
"I was scared, but my friend became a bit hysterical, so I told her in English -- they spoke in Arabic -- 'be quiet, don't make any noise, it'll make them attack us,'" she said.
"Suddenly, they came, it happened so quickly. They attacked us. One of them took out a very long knife, not a bread knife, but one that was serrated," Wilson said.
"I played dead. I saw (the knife) hadn't gone into my heart. My friend was dying, I heard her making gurgling sounds."

This Christmas season let us remember Christine Wilson and her family in our prayers. And may the monsters who attacked suffer punishment fitting the crime.

More on Martinez

Everyone is still trying to find reasons why 22 yr old Antonio Martinez converted to Islam and wanted to blow up military recruiters. His Mom says she did not raise him that way and is "embarrassed" by his actions. Martinez apparently has gone through a crisis of faith, from being baptized Christian to going to full blown Islamic jihadi screaming hate to all unbelievers. Along with spending some time in jail. I guess we will have to stay tuned to this developing story.

Baltimore Bomb Plot

A man tried to detonate a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device outside a military recruiting center in Cantonsville, MD.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Baltimore said the man attempted to detonate what he believed to be a vehicle bomb this morning at the Armed Forces Career center in the 5400 block of Baltimore National Pike.

"There was no danger to the public as the explosives were inert, and the suspect had been carefully monitored by law enforcement for months," the office said in a statement.

WBAL-TV, citing a source, said the man was a U.S. national of Nicaraguan descent and had recently converted to Islam. He was seeking to harm military personnel. The Associated Press first reported the arrest.