Category Archives: Military

UPDATED (4/5/018): THE GOOD NEWS: Islamic State Has Collapsed. Of Course, There’s Also Bad, But Predictable, News …

Ann Coulter, Foreign Policy, Middle East, Military, Terrorism, War

America’s Saudi bosom buddies are displeased, and are objecting loudly to President Trump’s promise to withdraw from Syria. This, against the spectacular news that “Islamic State has collapsed.”

The Economist explains:

FOR a moment it looked as though Syria’s seven-year war, which has killed more than 400,000 people and contributed to the largest refugee crisis in recent history, might be winding down. As 2017 drew to a close, the so-called caliphate of Islamic State (IS) had disintegrated. The forces of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and the rebels fighting to dethrone him had largely stopped killing each other. Russia, which had intervened to save Mr Assad, said its mission was “basically accomplished” and had promised to bring its troops home.

The bad news is that with “the collapse of IS,” a “scramble for territory [has] ensued” between competing powers:

Turkey has sent troops over its border to battle Kurdish forces. Americans have killed Russians. And long-standing tensions between Iran and Israel have flared.

The collapse of IS has also widened fissures among the foreign powers jostling for a say in Syria’s future. In January America’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said American troops would remain in Kurdish-held parts of Syria until IS no longer posed a threat, and a political solution to the war had been found. This infuriated Turkey, a NATO ally, which considers some of America’s Kurdish partners, the YPG, to be terrorists. Days after Mr Tillerson’s announcement, the Turkish army assaulted Afrin, a YPG-controlled pocket of territory in north-western Syria. There are no American forces in Afrin, but Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has threatened to march on Manbij, a town which does have them. This heightens the risk of direct clashes between two NATO powers and their proxies. America’s vow to stay in Syria has also angered Russia, which backed Turkey’s operation in Afrin. Seeking to test America’s commitment to its campaign, the Kremlin may have ordered Russian mercenaries to attack an American-supported base in the east—an attack that left scores of Russians dead.

“Oh what a tangled web we weave.”

MORE: “Why the war in Syria is hotting up.”

UPDATE (4/5/018):

Comments Off on UPDATED (4/5/018): THE GOOD NEWS: Islamic State Has Collapsed. Of Course, There’s Also Bad, But Predictable, News …

Written by on

UPDATE II (3/26): New Bridge Collapses, New Trains Derail, Navy Keeps Crashing, Police & FBI Fail: Are US Institutions Being Hollowed Out?

Affirmative Action, Government, Intelligence, Labor, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Military, Race, The State

A Washington-State Amtrak train, on a maiden trip, ends up dangling over Interstate 5, at DuPont, after leaving the tracks. The train’s engineer is traveling at 78 mph into a curve, where a 30 mph speed-limit is required and signs to that effect posted. Three passengers die, 62 are injured. Clearly a major systemic failure was afoot.

The public receives no follow up, to date. Media demand none.

Has anyone heard what became of the investigation into another Amtrak wonder, “the train that derailed in Philadelphia, May 14, 2015“? Naturally not. Like the more recent derailment, the train “was equipped with an automatic speed control system that officials say could have prevented the wreck, which killed eight passengers and injured hundreds. But the system, which was tantalizingly close to being operational, was delayed by budgetary shortfalls, technical hurdles and bureaucratic rules, officials said Thursday.”

AND NOW, a spanking “new pedestrian bridge collapses at a Florida university campus.” The “newly installed 950-ton pedestrian bridge that spanned 174 feet over the seven-lane road, also known as Calle Ocho, had collapsed, pancaking vehicles and leading to four deaths.”

People in their cars are pulverized.

Who on earth constructed this shit? Affirmative hires?

At least one kid is asking questions about the authorities in charge (something the ban-guns kiddies refuse to do):

One of the basics about construction is that everything should be tested beyond any doubt before it’s opened,” said Junia, 19, a sophomore at FIU. “Was this even tested before it was opened? This is really disheartening.

The navy has had its share of problems (not least its obscene TV ads which still declare a force funded by American taxpayers to be “a global force for good,” helping to eradicate poverty the world-over. Fuck it. That’s a betrayal of the Oath of Office!).

Are America’s institutions being hollowed out by policy? Is the tipping point being reached? I suspect so. All this here is anecdotal, but you too suspect the same when you give it some thought. (Schools, anybody? Run by anti-white, anti-male, dangerous, not-very-bright females, some with the Y Chromosome.)

Government failure is everywhere apparent. Failure at every level was all over the Florida, Douglas-High shooting. Not uncharacteristically, one offending officer, Scot Petersen, has been rewarded with retirement, not punishment, for dereliction of duty during the massacre.

Wait a sec. US government workers are never punished. (And the kids have been dumbed-down by the educators aforementioned as to the role of government. Thus  they refuse to demand accountability from their overlords. Next they’ll seek to ban beds where rapes occur on them.)

American institutions were once more merit-based. The attitude of those who’re doing the hollowing-out, through preferential, non-merit based hiring, quotas and set-asides, can be summed thus: Shit happens. Deal.

UPDATE I (3/16): GOVERNMENT KILLS. Like South Africa, the U.S. government, in this case the Department of Transportation, has a pyramid of hiring preferences. You can guess which variable features prominently in the considerations. It’s not competency. Certain kind of companies—ethnic lineage and complexion count—are encouraged to bid for government tenders. The “Munilla Construction Management, the South Florida firm” which gave us the Florida International University Bridge, is a veteran of unsafe practices. It’s what happens when political considerations override competency. It’s ALWAYS the case with government, which is why government should do very little hiring. Very little of anything, for that matter.

MORE: “Companies That Built Collapsed FIU Bridge Had Been Fined for Safety Violations.”

UPDATE II (3/26):

Comments Off on UPDATE II (3/26): New Bridge Collapses, New Trains Derail, Navy Keeps Crashing, Police & FBI Fail: Are US Institutions Being Hollowed Out?

Written by on

Yes, America Is Rome. And Yes, Americans Are Fiddling While Rome Burns

America, China, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Middle East, Military, War

The political establishment on both sides is preoccupied, with, as Buchanan puts it, “Fear that a four-page memo worked up in the House Judiciary Committee may discredit Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia-gate.”

All the while, the US, led by freewheeling Mad Generals—who else?—is wading deeper and deeper into conflict and war abroad.

Patrick J. Buchanan exposes a reality that has little to do with the mindless things that busy Big Media. Mindless because we are no longer a constitutional republic, which is by nature antithetical to empire. Pretending that we are comes at the cost of neglecting to prevent wars in which the US only loses.

If Turkey is not bluffing, U.S. troops in Manbij, Syria, could be under fire by week’s end, and NATO engulfed in the worst crisis in its history.

Turkish President Erdogan said Friday his troops will cleanse Manbij of Kurdish fighters, alongside whom U.S. troops are embedded.

Erdogan’s foreign minister demanded concrete steps by the U.S. to end its support of the Kurds, who control the Syrian border with Turkey east of the Euphrates, all the way to Iraq.

If the Turks attack Manbij, the U.S. will face a choice: Stand by our Kurdish allies and resist the Turks, or abandon the Kurds.

…. But to stand with the Kurds and oppose Erdogan’s forces could mean a crackup of NATO and loss of U.S. bases inside Turkey, including the air base at Incirlik.

Turkey also sits astride the Dardanelles entrance to the Black Sea….

Yet Syria is but one of many challenges to U.S. foreign policy.

The Winter Olympics in South Korea may have taken the threat of a North Korean ICBM that could hit the U.S. out of the news. But no one believes that threat is behind us.

Last week, China charged that the USS Hopper, a guided missile destroyer, sailed within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal, a reef in the South China Sea claimed by Beijing, though it is far closer to Luzon in the Philippines. … If we continue to contest China’s territorial claims with U.S. warships, a clash is inevitable.

In a similar incident Monday, a Russian military jet came within five feet of a U.S. Navy EP-3 Orion surveillance plane in international airspace over the Black Sea, forcing the Navy plane to end its mission.

U.S. relations with Cold War ally Pakistan are at rock bottom. In his first tweet of 2018, President Trump charged Pakistan with being a duplicitous and false friend.

“The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”

As for America’s longest war, in Afghanistan, now in its 17th year, the end is nowhere on the horizon.

A week ago, the International Hotel in Kabul was attacked and held for 13 hours by Taliban gunmen who killed 40. Midweek, a Save the Children facility in Jalalabad was attacked by ISIS, creating panic among aid workers across the country.

Saturday, an ambulance exploded in Kabul, killing 103 people and wounding 235. Monday, Islamic State militants attacked Afghan soldiers guarding a military academy in Kabul. With the fighting season two months off, U.S. troops will not soon be departing.

If Pakistan is indeed providing sanctuary for the terrorists of the Haqqani network, how does this war end successfully for the United States?

Last week, in a friendly fire incident, the U.S.-led coalition killed 10 Iraqi soldiers. The Iraq war began 15 years ago.

Yet another war, where the humanitarian crisis rivals Syria, continues on the Arabian Peninsula. There, a Saudi air, sea and land blockade that threatens the Yemeni people with starvation has failed to dislodge Houthi rebels who seized the capital Sanaa three years ago.

This weekend brought news that secessionist rebels, backed by the United Arab Emirates, have seized power in Yemen’s southern port of Aden, from the Saudi-backed Hadi regime fighting the Houthis.

These rebels seek to split the country, as it was before 1990.

Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE appear to be backing different horses in this tribal-civil-sectarian war into which America has been drawn.

There are other wars – Somalia, Libya, Ukraine – where the U.S. is taking sides, sending arms, training troops, flying missions.

Like the Romans, we have become an empire, committed to fight for scores of nations, with troops on every continent, and forces in combat operations of which the American people are only vaguely aware.

…
… As in all empires, power is passing to the generals.

And what causes the greatest angst today in the imperial city?

Fear that a four-page memo worked up in the House Judiciary Committee may discredit Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia-gate.

MORE: “Too Many Wars. Too Many Enemies”

RELATED: “How President Trump Normalized Neoconservatism.“

1: How Do You Know You’re A Neocon? Hint: It Has To Do With How You See US History

Cultural Marxism, History, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Military, Neoconservatism, Old Right, Political Philosophy, States' Rights, The State, War

A neoconservative will have hastened to condemn a wise and magnanimous man, John F. Kelly, for seeing redeeming qualities in Robert E. Lee.

Robert E. Lee. was an honorable man,” said White House Chief of Staff Mr. Kelly. How dare he! And how right he was. Lee was a great American.

When Lee resigned his commission as the colonel of the 1st U.S. Cavalry in April 1861 and subsequently took command of the state forces of Virginia, and eventually of the armies of the Southern Confederacy, he was only acting to “fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country.”

John F. Kelly is an honorable and wise American.

Allen C. Guelzo, the author of the piece condemning Kelly, writes in the neoconservative, Cultural Marxist tradition, whereby history is painted over with a cheap patina of current political dogma, to conceal traditional, republican virtues of yesteryear.

Pat Buchanan on The Great Man.