Archive for the ‘war’ Category

by baldilocks

As has become apparent, the Democratic Party will do anything to keep from losing even after they have already lost.

The latest preventative method: an impeachment probe.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi launched a formal impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump on Tuesday, acquiescing to mounting pressure from fellow Democrats and plunging a deeply divided nation into an election year clash between Congress and the commander in chief.

The probe centers on whether Trump abused his presidential powers and sought help from a foreign government for his reelection. Pelosi said such actions would mark a “betrayal of his oath of office” and declared: “No one is above the law.”

At issue are Trump’s actions with Ukraine. In a summer phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, he is said to have asked for help investigating Democrat Joe Biden and his son Hunter. In the days before the call, Trump ordered advisers to freeze $400 million in military aid for Ukraine — prompting speculation that he was holding out the money as leverage for information on the Bidens. Trump has denied that charge, but acknowledged he blocked the funds. (…)

Trump advisers say they are confident that an impeachment process led by the opposition party will bolster his political support heading into his reelection campaign.

This morning, before the probe announcement, the president tweeted that he’ll release the transcript of the phone call.

I suspect that this will bite the Democrat Party on the backside. Or probe said backside. The president has a preternatural way of causing his enemies to fall into their own self-dug pits.

Meanwhile, if you want confirmation of the fact that other forces are at work, look no further than President Trump’s words at the UN summit days ago. Look to who he defends.

President Trump told all gathered at this year’s UN Summit:  “Today, with one clear voice, the United States of America calls upon the nations of the world to end religious persecution.”  

“We’re standing up for almost 250 million Christians around the world who are persecuted for their faith.  It is estimated that 11 Christians are killed every day for the following — I mean, just think of this: Eleven Christians a day, for following the teachings of Christ.  Who would even think that’s possible in this day and age?  Who would think it’s possible?”

“The United States is founded on the principle that our rights do not come from government; they come from God, Trump reminded the assembly.   “This immortal truth is proclaimed in our Declaration of Independence and enshrined in the First Amendment to our Constitution’s Bill of Rights.  Our Founders understood that no right is more fundamental to a peaceful, prosperous, and virtuous society than the right to follow one’s religious convictions.

“Regrettably, the religious freedom enjoyed by American citizens is rare in the world.

“Approximately 80 percent of the world’s population live in countries where religious liberty is threatened, restricted, or even banned.  And when I heard that number, I said, ‘Please go back and check it because it can’t possibly be correct.’ And, sadly, it was.  Eighty percent.

“As we speak, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Yazidis, and many other people of faith are being jailed, sanctioned, tortured, and even murdered, often at the hands of their own government, simply for expressing their deeply held religious beliefs.  So hard to believe.”

And there was this on abortion.

The Trump administration Monday declared to U.N member nations that there is no “international right” to abortion, and called on other countries to fight efforts promoting abortions, drawing criticism from reproductive rights groups and other world nations.

President Trump has the unique distinction among pro-life presidents of actually doing something to keep the money of American citizens out of Planned Parenthood’s coffers. So this is more that mere words.

I don’t claim to know anything about the president’s relationship with God. I do know, however, that the president is standing up for most of the things that God cares about and that many of those who seek his removal from office also seek more death. And, just to top things off, they want us to fund the destruction.

So I think that the battle we cannot see is the one that fuels the one we can.

Remember, this isn’t about Donald Trump, it’s about us — the people of the United States.  It’s about what kind of country we want this nation to be.

Next year, we’ll see the results of these battles, both political and spiritual.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

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Norway: stuck in the middle

Posted: August 24, 2019 by ng36b in war
Tags: , ,

Norway is stuck in the middle. Russia has been pushing more aggressively past Norway. Recently Russia canceled a polar Norwegian Cruise Line entry into Russian waters, forcing the cruise company to reimburse passengers only two weeks before the cruise. Russia also surged naval forces off the Norwegian coast in its “Ocean Shield” exercise, causing a lot of consternation among the Norwegian populace.

But simply saddling up to the US isn’t in the cards, at least for some. Norwegian media is enthralled with President Trump, and not in a nice way. Norwegian media, namely Dagbladet and Klassekampen, regularly blast the US and President Trump in particular, and call for Norway to keep its distance from the US.

Norway is quickly entering into a forced choice. It’s military understands that NATO, and specifically the US, are critical to keeping it independent of Russia in any future conflict. The US is doubling down not just on NATO funding, but also on support for the Straits of Hormuz patrols. Iran’s foreign minister recently visited Norway, was met with significant protests, and told Norway to not support the patrols.

So now Norway, always content to play the middle, gets to choose between two forces. On one side, a resurging Russia and Iran, who are willing to use their muscle in critical maritime geography, and a US, which is using its forces to support the agreed-upon UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Choices have consequences, and the middle choice will likely become untenable before much longer.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Everyone thinks Trump’s military parade is a dumb idea. Well, everyone in the media anyway, and sadly there is a vocal minority in the military that is attempting to lend their voices as well.

We’ve done military parades before. CNN of all places had a neat wrap up of pictures from previous military parades. While we haven’t done them for a while, that is probably due to under sizing and under-resourcing our military. The last big military parade was in 1991, when we had almost 530 ships. Only a few years later, in 1995, we were under 400, and now we are under 300. Similar downsizing happened for the other services.

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Watching Morning Joe today. They started with Libya and talk was all about arming the rebels and why Libya and not elsewhere. Listening to the discussion I noticed that there was something missing.

I had my doubts whenever Joe Scarborough’s op-ed, would get the play it normally does. Considering that the opening segment is repeated at 8 a.m. you would think that they would make it a point to bring up the hosts op-ed on the subject of the day first. Instead during Mika’s must read op-eds it was mentioned late as they instead talks of the anniversary of the Reagan Assassination attempt, leaving just enough time to give Joe’s piece two minutes

However Joe’s op-ed points to the phoniness of the president’s supporters on Libya, and I don’t think MSNBC wants to overplay that argument.

Speaking of op-eds here is different one from Anne Applebaum via Legal Insurrection that won’t get any play on MSNBC:

Sarkozy clearly hopes the Libyan adventure will make him popular, too. Nobody finds this surprising. At a conference in Brussels over the weekend, I watched a French participant boast of France’s leading role in the Libyan air campaign. A minute later, he heartily agreed that the war was a ploy to help Sarkozy get re-elected. The two emotions—pride in French leadership and cynicism about Sarkozy’s real motives—were not, it seems, mutually exclusive.

And of course the goal is to have this underwritten by the US while he gets the supposed electoral benefits.

Do not expect the MSM to give Anne’s take any play at all.