No Alamo at San Antonio de Benghazi or Rhineland Sequel

Posted: January 2, 2020 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, culture, media, middle east, News/opinion, Uncomfortable Truths, war
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Eight years ago, just before an election our embassy was attacked in Benghazi and i wrote the following post on the subject:

Picture that night for a moment, In the end attackers lost 30-60% of their force but for the sake of argument let’s say only 25% of that was in the first wave. You’re attacking the compound, you’ve been attacking for hours and seen people fall all around you. You’ve been beaten back once and don’t actually know how many men are inside, what do you think would have happened if they heard the sound of a single helicopter gunship? A single plane? a single drone dropping a bomb on the force already bloodied at a rate that would cause most Western countries to declare the mission a disaster?

They would have run.

Instead there was no Helicopter gunship, there was no relieving force, there wasn’t even a single remote control bomb in those seven hours after all there is a fundraiser in Vegas to worry about.

The actions of the Obama administration in general and the President and Secretary of State Clinton in particular were a national disgrace, but fully in keeping with the philosophy that American interests in general and Americans lives in particular are not worth fighting for.

Fast forward seven plus years. Suddenly the Iranians are hitting our compound in Iraq. The media is in a frenzy ready to call this Trump’s Benghazi, celebs who support them are practically giddy with excitement at the prospect of embarrassment to President Trump in an election year

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But while the media was looking for a Benghazi sequel, the Iranians were looking for a different sequel, they were looking for a Rhineland sequel.

You don’t know about the Rhineland business in 1936? Well in March of 1936 the Germans under a fellow by the name of Adolph Hitler moved their army into the Rhineland in direct opposition to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, it was an aggressive move, a provocative move and a move that was completely dependent on the French not reacting, as one German officer put it:

“I can tell you that for five days and five nights not one of us closed an eye. We knew that if the French marched, we were done. We had no fortifications, and no army to match the French. If the French had even mobilized, we should have been compelled to retire.”

In fact one officer went so far as to suggest that if the French had intervened there in March of 1936 Hitler would have fallen.

By an odd coincidence the Iranians are having trouble at home and things are a tad shaky The Iranians could sure use a win and according to the international press, America is under the control of an incompetent leader who is in danger of being forced from office, so what better time to push the envelope against a paper power run by an incompetent leader unwilling or unable to fight back.

Alas for the Iranians the source of the reports of Donald Trump’s weakness and incompetence are a unreliable and unfortunately for them along with celebs like Ms. Midler and the media whose reports they rely on President Trump isn’t Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton:

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and those choppers didn’t come alone, they came with US Marines:

Do you know what happens when you send Apache Helicopters and US Marines to an embassy that Iranians are attacking? One guess:

All members of paramilitary groups and their supporters who have been protesting against US air strikes in Iraq have withdrawn from the perimeter of the US Embassy in Baghdad on Wednesday, the Iraqi military said.”All protesters have withdrawn, tents dismantled, and other forms of demonstrating that accompanied these protests have ended and the Iraqi security forces have completely secured the embassy perimeter,” it said in a statement.

Or as it was put

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And the president weighed in personally:

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So instead the Iranians have run, their leaders, like Kim in North Korea are making threats and dismissing the president but actions speak louder than words and right now they know that they aren’t dealing with the pretend version of a president that the MSM has painted for them.

Trump took action and the Iranians are running and the ambassador remains unharmed and the US remains ready to protect our own.

For Iran that’s a disaster, and for the media and Democrats it’s a disaster too.

I’m old enough to remember when wouldn’t be able to say that about the press or Democrats.

2020: The Year We Find Out What America Shall be

Posted: January 1, 2020 by datechguy in politics
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Having been born in 1963 of Parents Born in 1921 & 1924 of Grandparents born from 1878-1896 me and mine have seen a lot of years of consequence.

For my grandparents 1914 would be the biggest year of consequence they were alive as it was the year where the entire history of the world pivoted on the decision of a single Serbian’s pistol shot.

For my parents it would be 1942 because in that year three allied battles Stalingrad (which started in 42 but ended in 43) El-Alamein (which started in 41 but ended in 42) and Midway all took place. The results of these battles meant that the 3rd Reich and their allies would not rule the world let alone survive World War 2 intact.

Until recently I thought the most significant year in my life would have been somewhere in the 1980’s where the combination of Reagan, Thatcher, St. Pope John Paul II & Lech Walesa lead to the fall of the Soviet Union and freedom for hundreds of millions around the world with perhaps 1986 being the key year, but 1984 (Reagan re-election) 89 (1st non communist government in Poland, 1983 (JP II 2nd visit to Poland) or even 1987 (“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”). But the more I think of it, for good or ill the year 2020 is likely going to be the most significant year of my lifetime in terms of history in general and American History in particular.

This is the year we find out if America survives as a single united free capitalist country.

This is the year that we find out if in fact if socialist and communist turn their cold war defeat into a belated victory.

This is the year we find out without question if America will stand up to it’s enemies or back down.

This is the year we find out if American blacks will believe the evidence of their own eyes and wallets or the propaganda that has enslaved them politically for 50 years.

This is the year we find out if America has boarders or it doesn’t.

This is the year where we find out if we are energy independent and thus able to resist OPEC & Russia or not.

This is the year we find out if our laws will be based on the Constitution as written or as imagined by the left.

This is the year we find out if we are to be bullied by those who claim that there are as many genders as there are grains of sands on the beach.

This is the year we discover if America is truly the leader of the free world or not

This is the year we discover if my children and grandchildren will be able to follow their Catholic Faith freely without fear or pay a heavy price for a profession of Christian faith.

And this is the year that we discover if the deep state with it’s propaganda machines in the press, and entertainment and the universities will rule this country or not.

As we are still, at this point free enough to make this choice as a nation, nothing is certain. All my instincts and all the data suggests that we will make the wise choice, there is still that fear within me that we will not, and that my sons and grandchildren will have to risk their lives to fight their way out of the socialism that their peers and mine vote themselves into.

Americans will as always get the government we deserve, but this is the year will discover if what we deserve is freedom we were bequeathed or not.

May God help us decide wisely.

Best of Baldilocks at DTGB in 2019 — With a Workaround

Posted: December 31, 2019 by julietteochieng in dablog, elections, News/opinion, politics, Uncomfortable Truths
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Happy New Decade!

by baldilocks

I would share excerpts from all of the most popular posts of mine from this blog, but Peter’s old site bought the farm in August. Therefore, I will share the most popular posts from that point in time to today.

However, I do have access to the posts from the dead site, so I’m going to re-post at least one from each month — January to August —  at baldilocks. I will post those in full and they won’t necessarily be the ones which received the most traffic.

Here we go!

*****
Impeachment Strategy

[President Trump] knows that the Democrats have been after him since he announced his candidacy; they pre-conjured a reason for his impeachment, for Heaven’s sake. Therefore, he is forcing an impeachment at the time of his choosing rather than theirs.

More on the Hollowing Out of California

Good and sweet things out, bad and smelly things in.

Gang Warfare

One of President Trump’s missions is to expose the various means which the political gangs have of enriching themselves on monies gotten from the pockets of the tax-payers. Ukraine seems to be both a means of thievery and a huge storage space for the loot.

The Pentagon’s Vast All-Wing Conspiracy: Plunder

In 2018, the Pentagon conducted an audit; it was the first time Department of Defense had ever done so since its 1947 creation, even though an annual audit for the Department has been legally required since 1990. The audit failed – an insufficient description.

The Pentagon cannot account for $21 trillion. TRILLION. Times 21.

That Such Men Lived

What I love about Doris Miller’s existence is that the man was here for only a short time and was merely playing the cards that life dealt him when he performed the action that will long outlive him. When the challenge came, he stepped to it and met it — something intrinsic in heroes and heroism.

It’s Almost Showtime

I wish I were surprised at how many people think that when the House votes on formal impeachment articles that the president must be removed from office right then and there, but I’m not. Even some of those who were around when it happened to President Clinton will not bother themselves to understand the process.

My Vox Problem

On January 1, 2020, it will severely limit all of my gigs. In short, California AB5 limits me to 35 pieces of freelance work per year for an individual recipient.

Pelosi Plays Her Role

Speaker Pelosi is correct in observing that President Trump will have the distinction that only two other presidents have. But I bet he will also have the distinction of showing the entire world how crooked those who claim to lead us and represent us have been for decades. If he does that, he’ll be by himself in history.

More to come at baldilocks blog!

And don’t forget about this.

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.

Follow Juliette on Facebook, Twitter, MeWe, Patreon and Social Quodverum.

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Or hit Juliette’s!

The stigma of Camp David

Posted: December 31, 2019 by chrisharper in middle east
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By Christopher Harper

The Camp David Accords—once heralded by the United States, Israel, and Egypt as a solution to the Middle East crisis—continue to stymie any significant efforts to address the problems in the region.

More than 40 years ago, I arrived in the Middle East just after the peace agreement was signed. At the time, Americans saw the agreement as a major step forward. Instead, the accords resulted in the isolation of Egypt—once the leader of the Arab world.

Until now, Egypt has been relegated to a secondary role in the region. Moreover, the agreement led directly to the assassination of Anwar Sadat, the rise of Saddam Hussein, and myriad troubles in the Middle East from Syria to Libya and even Iran.

For Egypt and Israel, the agreement has resulted in what many call a “cold peace” during which the two countries don’t face the possibility of war but with little interaction beyond cursory talks about security and economic issues.

For example, my wife and I have been traveling throughout Egypt over the past two weeks. We wanted to stop in Israel for a short visit. But we found it virtually impossible to find a way to travel directly between the two countries.

The huge volume of U.S. aid has had almost no impact on improving the lot of the average Egyptian, most of whom see little benefit from the Camp David agreement.

Cultural exchanges—once seen as a way to improve relations between Egyptians and Israelis–have faltered badly. For example, Farouk Hosnoy, the former minister for culture for more than two decades, refused to visit Israel and threatened to burn any Israeli book he found in the Alexandria library. Every year, organizers of Cairo Film Festival refuse to allow Israel to participate in the event. When the Israeli Center for Research and Information translated Alaa al-Aswany’s popular novel, The Yacoubian Building, he threatened to sue the center because he opposed to cultural normalization with Israel.

At one point, Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court upheld a ruling that ordered the revocation of citizenship from 30,000 Egyptian men married to Israeli women.

The long-term tension between Israel and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip that borders Egypt, has created problems for the Cairo government. The Egyptians, who brokered a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, has grown increasingly tired of the actions of both sides.

Despite the long list of diplomatic ills, however, a recent gas deal between Egypt and Israel provides some hope for the future.

Partners in Israel’s Leviathan and Tamar offshore gas fields agreed last year to sell $15 billion worth of gas to a customer in Egypt in what Israeli officials called the most significant deal to emerge since the neighbors made peace in 1979.

With this significant step in economic ties, perhaps the “cold peace” will at least result in some future cooperation between the two sides. But the Camp David accords—once hailed as the pathway to peace in the region—will remain a sore point for Egypt, Israel, and the rest of the Middle East.

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