Posts Tagged ‘nato’

How About we establish a Few “No Loot Zones” & “No shoot zones” in the US before we move to No Fly Zones elsewhere?

Posted: March 7, 2022 by datechguy in war
Tags: , , ,

Pat Wheeler: Son, l asked you over here because the Sheriff’s a friend of mine. He’s got trouble. He can use a good man.

Colorado Ryan: To go against the Burdettes, Sheriff?

Sheriff Chance: That’s right.

Pat Wheeler: I told him you were one of the best.

Colorado Ryan: I’ll tell you what I’m a lot better at, Mr. Wheeler. That’s minding my own business. No offense, Sheriff.

Sheriff Chance: No offense.

Pat Wheeler: I never expected that.

Sheriff Chance: He showed good sense.

Rio Bravo 1959

There has been a lot of talk about a No Fly Zone in Ukraine enforced by NATO. The president of Ukraine lobbied congress for such a think and the Ukrainians have been doing their best to shame the west into this kind of direct confrontation with Russia.

Now the Ukrainians are in the process of being invaded and that being the case I have no problem with them doing all they can to get allies in the fight, in fact they would not be doing their job if they didn’t, but something occurred to me as the echoing gong of intervention has been going out.

Where are the calls for US Intervention in Chicago and Baltimore?

We have people being shot there on a regular basis and innocent bystanders being killed and wounded including children, yet we don’t have anyone talking about sending forces to control the violence there nor are there outcries for intervention in Chicago or people putting the Chicago or Baltimore city flags or seals on their twitter feed.

War is a messy thing. There is shooting, there is violence. And when civil authority breaks down you can see arson, you can see looting which begs the question.

Where are the calls for US intervention in San Francisco, or Portland or even New York City?

We’ve had wholesale arson, we’ve seen people take over streets and threaten others, we’ve seen looting and theft with impunity, yet the very suggestion that Americans should be sent to a part of America to protect Americans from these things in any of these cities is practically beyond the pale and it seems odd to me that so many Americans are all gung ho about getting involved in Ukraine but don’t seem to give a damn about what is going on here, not just ordinary crime which you might say is a local matter but crime and violence of a type that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago.

Am I saying that what Putin has done isn’t wrong, not at all. Putin should turn his armies around, head back to Russia and stay there.

But we’re not Poland, or Finland or the Baltic states, all of who have a history with Russia and have a legitimate worry about an aggressive Russia in their neighborhood and might decide it’s in their interest to get deeply involved . I submit and suggest it would show a lot of good sense to think long and hard before we go and get ourselves deeply involved in a war in eastern Europe that doesn’t involve a NATO ally that’s we’re committed to defend.

Around the blogroll 3/19/10

Posted: March 19, 2010 by datechguy in fun, gaming, opinion/news
Tags: , , , , , ,

Let’s take a peek around the blogroll and see what we can see:

Dan Collins notes a double standard on gaffes:

But despite all of the available evidence that so easily destroys the meta-narrative of Obama’s brilliance, we still have yet to see him get the same treatment that Gerald Ford, Reagan, Quayle, or G.W. Bush did; where are all of the jokes about his educated idiocy? About Hirohito signing the surrender aboard the Missouri? About him listing the 57 states? No one seems to see the humor in any of this.

This reminds me a bit of why I think Obamacare is such a priority for this administration.

On the left side of the aisle Dissenting Justice takes issue with John Sheehan and his opinion of Gay Soldiers in the Dutch army:

Sheehan’s comments are absolutely bankrupt. 23 of the 26 NATO members allow out gays and lesbians to serve in the military. Only the US, Turkey and Portugal do not. Under Sheehan’s “logic,” NATO itself is ineffective due to the presence of gay soldiers.

There is no question however that the Dutch certainly didn’t cover themselves with glory in Bosnia. I’ve given my opinion on gays in the military here.

And Finally Peg at What if notes that both the administrations dealings with Israel and her showing in the North American Bridge association championships leave much to be desired:

his kind of excessive and weirdly paternalistic attitude to the state of Israel, directed so clearly from the top, seems to come out of a kind of unexamined personal animus. The long record that Obama has of friendship with virulent enemies of Israel has not gone unnoticed.

As the old saying goes; only time will tell. Let’s hope that the rest of the time this week is kinder to my bridge performance, too!

Hey Peg, at least you never played with a partner who liked to bluff when bidding. It really changes the game.