Still a Squeamish Loser

Several years ago, I spent time on this blog explaining how Colin Powell is a squeamish loser.  Well, nothing's changed.

He's spent a lifetime vacillating and politicking.  He even took credit for winning the Persian Gulf War when he wasn't even a field commander.

He's gotten a lot of leg's up in his career for being black.  Then he declared himself a republican.  I'm not sure why since he hasn't once expressed a principle that might be similar to anything that the republican party claims to hold to.

Then he went with the flow and ignored B. Hussein's marxist ideology and supported him for the presidency, even though he contributed money to McCain to help him secure the republican nomination.

Powell, along with every other black voter, about 90%, in this country that voted for Obama, proved that whites are not generally racists, but blacks are.  Blacks vote for a man based solely on the color of his skin.  

So now, Powell has buyer's remorse.  Screw him.  It's about time the country starts ignoring this opportunistic, squeamish loser.

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Too Late

The democrats are enacting marxist laws.  They are ignoring the minority party for the most part and now have enacted a "cap and trade" bill without even telling the minority party what is in the bill.  

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Remote Control 

I just got back from my two weeks of annual training with the Marine Corps out in the mountains of Central California.  It was a large operation, larger than in recent memory for the reserves.  Along with the predictable command and control and logistics training, we also helped defense contractors exhibit new technology.  In particular, we had a remote control helicopter flying supplies to one of our companies.  It's also designed to be able to fly out wounded Marines.

As my dad reminded me, remote control helicopters aren't a new idea.  We just have better controls nowadays.

At Hawthorne Army Depot while in retrograde to Houston, I saw where some remote control armored vehicles were being tested.  

Now, I'm all in favor of remote control surveillance aircraft.  I'm in favor of remote control explosives ordnance demolition vehicles.  But I find it deeply unsettling that so much effort is being spent on remote control resupply vehicles or medivac vehicles.  

Imagine you're in a rifle company that's getting shot at.  You already probably feel pretty isolated and forgotten by the world, and now you're being delivered supplies by a robot.  Your government seems to think that it's okay for you to be in danger, but the danger is too great for someone to simply visit by bringing in supplies.

Remote control vehicles to resupply infantry units are a bad idea because they announce that the government doesn't mind spending tons of money developing and buying systems that keep precious pilots, officers, from getting shot at.  The expensive equipment is expendable, but that precious officer flying it is not – because that precious officer is more important than the lance corporals and privates that are told to go into harm's way.  

The biggest danger with remote control resupply and medivac vehicles is that it would encourage leaders, politicians and those with decision authority, to put our Marines at greater risk and deeper isolation, making them more likely to be expendable.

Besides, the main strength of a military, as is proven again and again over the millenia and even in our current wars, is that continuity in military presence across terrain is vitally important.  Isolated military presence is of limited value and can be easily over run or ignored by a determined enemy.  

The Viet Nam War era way of fighting wars on the cheap, as though the military were a business, has contaminated our war fighting to this day.  Rumsfeld wanted to fight the wars with the optimum and minimum number of forces required, with the result that he often underestimated requirements.  Now the military is treating the military like a factory, trying to reduce costs by reducing manpower.  

Fighting a war is not like running a union-controlled factory.  Manpower is vital.  War is personal.  Trying to pretend otherwise lost us the war in Viet Nam, almost lost the war in Iraq, and has caused the war in Afghanistan to flounder.  

We need to forget foolish projects like remote control helos for resupply and concentrate on keeping units resupplied by truck or manned helos if there's an emergency – not just because it sends a bad message to the men doing the fighting, but because that is the symptom of an ideology that fails to understand what war is and how wars are won.

War is personal.  The purpose of war is to inflict our will on another population.  Our will is inflicted by people, not by robots.  

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Who's to blame for Venezuela?

The mayor of the city of Carracas says that Venezuela is now a dictatorship.  Whose fault is it?

It's easy to point a finger and blame the dictator.  And to be sure the dictator is the focus of the blame, but his guilt doesn't absolve the rest of the guilty.

One man can't be a dictator.  It's impossible.  Not even a small cadre can do it, especially in a country with a tradition of democracy, individual rights and property rights.  Chavez can only be a dictator with the support of a lot of people.  Maybe not a majority of the people, but still it takes a lot of supporters to be a dictator.  

Some might support the dictator from love for him.  Some might support him for a desire to share in the spoils.  Some might support him out of apathy.  And some might support him out of fear.

Regardless, these supporters are all equally guilty.  Fear is no reason to excuse guilt.  We might sympathize with those in fear, but we should never excuse their crime.

A variation on this theme is the blame for the situation in Iran.  There are many, many people who buy into the theory that the United States orchestrated the rise to power of the Shah.  This is preposterous on its face.  There are millions of people living in Iran.  A handful of American agents cannot create power over those millions without the acquiescence and active support of a sizable part of the population.  Whenever a population chooses to resist the CIA in regime change, they succeed without a sweat.  Cuba still is communist.  Iraq's dictator did not fall until we brought in a few divisions of soldiers and Marines.  

A people are responsible for the government they allow to rule them.  This has always been true, whether the people understood it or not.  It is a hallmark of modern international law, and the reason for its failure to encourage peace in the Middle East and everywhere it is applied, that people are held blameless for their government's actions.  

If the people of a nation were held to be accountable for the evils perpetrated by that nation, there would be fewer dictatorships around.

Venezuelans may not, as a majority, support their dictator, but many do.  The people in the best position to do something about a dictatorship are the people supporting him.  When their peers fail to act, they have no one to blame but themselves.

Who's to blame for Venezuela?  The people of Venezuela, that's who.

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Pravda

Blogging has been light because I'm in a continuous state of disbelief as to what has been happening in our nation.  The clearest indication that my reaction is proper is provided by the former Soviet state newspaper, Pravda which declares that the United States is rushing headlong into Marxism.

So I guess my stunned reaction is not so undeserved.

I'm sick to my stomach.

 

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B. Hussein, Religion, Notre Dame 

I was flipping the channels this afternoon, hoping my two year old would finally get sleepy enough for a nap and I chanced upon the last 20 minutes of B. Hussein's commencement address to the University of Notre Dame's class of 2009.

I am a big fan of Notre Dame commencements, I attended all of them between 1982 and 1985.  There has been a quasi tradition of sorts, Bush the First was an exception to that tradition, that newly elected presidents speak at Notre Dame the year that they are elected.  I haven't kept track of the years since then, but that's why I initially wasn't much bothered that B. Hussein was asked to speak at the 2009 commencements.

As the controversy advanced, I had to change my mind.  The University seems to have completely mishandled the entire issue.  Rather than simply say that he is the President, and we're honored that a man in that position will speak, they tried very clumsily to soften his controversial votes in favor of killing children that survive botched abortion procedures by balancing his attendance with that of their very pro-Catholic Laertare Medal nominee.

I don't blame Mary Glendon for refusing to be made a part of the spectacle.  I especially like her comment that commencement addresses fundamentally should be for the graduates, not to be a vehicle for complex and very disputed public controversy.

I don't know or much care who was the second fiddle to accept the Laetare Medal.  How must they feel to know that they are the first person to receive the honor after the intended recipient refused?*

Now to B. Hussein's address.  I didn't hear the whole thing, but I didn't hear him talk much about his communist ideology, beyond simple phrases imploring collectivism.  I didn't hear how he was acting to nationalize businesses and demonize private enterprise.

What I heard was frequent mentions of the virtue of religion and professions of religious belief.  I think there is nothing wrong with the president making such statements, but let's put this in some perspective.  If Bush the Second or any Republican president had given a speech with such frequent entreaties to an almighty, he would have been pilloried by the press for mixing church and state.  The silence from the usual critics is more evidence that the press is not only biased, but is actively promoting B. Hussein's marxist agenda.

The hypocracy is getting more than tiring.  It's gotten dangerous.  Bush was mocked for smirking, but I see little criticism of B. Hussein's obvious smirking and haughty demeanor.  He's The Won and need not be bothered.

I think Notre Dame should be ashamed for letting a man who not only promotes abortion, but encourages killing already born babies.  Notre Dame has lost a lot of its moral authority and credibility.  

*A quick bit of research shows that the University decided not to insult someone with a left over Laetare Medal and merely asked a former honoree to give an address.

 

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The CIA and Torture

I'm starting to think that Christopher Hitchens is about the smartest man in America.  Not all knowing, but better at analyzing things than others.

His latest column on the CIA and its use of torture, defended by so many good christians of the right wing, is another example of his ability to bring clarity to a topic fouled by moral equivocation.

Here's the money quote:

On 9/11, according to Bob Woodward, George Tenet audibly hoped that the suicide-murderers of al-Qaida were not connected to the shady-looking pupils at those flight schools in the Midwest. The schools, that is to say, about which the CIA knew! In other words, and not for the first time, the CIA (which disbelieved the evidence of Saddam's plan to attack Kuwait in 1990 and continually excused him as a "secularist") had left us defenseless and ignorant. Unprofessional and hysterical methods of interrogation, therefore, were unleashed in part to overcompensate for—and to cover up—a general lack of professionalism at every level of the agency from the top down. 

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U.S. Grant on Door Stop Officers

I was doing some research and happened to come across a quote that had absolutely nothing to do with what I was researching, but it was so good I had to take note of it.  It's from President U. S. Grant and it speaks for itself.  

"It did seem to me, in my early army days, that too many of the older officers, when they came to command posts, made it a study to think what orders they could publish to annoy their subordinates and render them uncomfortable. I noticed, however, a few years later, when the Mexican war broke out, that most of this class of officers discovered they were possessed of disabilities which entirely incapacitated them for active field service. They had the moral courage to proclaim it, too. They were right; but they did not always give their disease the right name."

Nope, I never met an officer like that.  :)

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A Master of Saying Nothing 

Obama has shown a complete mastery of publicly standing for nothing.  His latest stunt is a very interesting nuance on that theme.  He says he wants to look to the future, not to the past.  He's been saying that for a while now.

And there are a lot of politicians that holler one thing and do another.  That's not new.

But what The Won has done now is nothing short of brilliant as a demonstration of getting others to do dirty work while he professes to stay above the fray.

He released the classified legal briefs formed for President Bush concerning how different types of torture and maltreatment could be allowed in a twisted and immoral interpretation of law.  But then he says, oh, but I don't want to do anything about it knowing darn well that congress will.

Don't misunderstand me.  The use of torture, no matter what it may have or may not have gained us in intelligence, was a disastrous and immoral position that will stain the honor of our nation for centuries.  Why would any nation strive to copy our form of government if we allow torture and mistreatment of people, no matter how barbaric or vicious they might be?  Dick Cheney quipped that if Obama is going to declassify the papers describing the torture and mistreatment allowed, then he should also declassify the results obtained.  I have respect for Cheney because I think he is very intelligent, but he is also morally bankrupt on this issue.  He is also part of the team that believed that a war can be won using only special forces and limited numbers of people.  For all his intelligence, he certainly has no appreciation for human nature and the citizens of nations.  

It doesn't matter what intelligence was gained, it was not worth it.

I digress.  Back to the point.  

B. Hussein has succeeded in stirring up a hornet's nest.  His lackeys in the press won't call him out on it, and indeed they have been faithfully parroting his disingenuous protestations that this unprecedented breach of security was innocently intended.

Meanwhile, lawyers who wrote a legal opinion for their client are being threatened with criminal prosecution.  The dean of the University of California at Irvine (a very well known man in the legal community) has said, and he made sure that we knew his comparison was intentional and exact, that the writers of these legal opinions were precisely as guilty as the Nazis who slaughtered 6 million Jews.  

As he has done all his life, B. Hussein will get to eat his cake and have it too.  Others will do the dirty work, while he sits back and lets them do it.  This is precisely how he is going to turn this nation into a Soviet Republic of America, the dream of the Communist Party of the United States.  He is going to nationalize the banks by converting preferred stocks into voting common stocks and then we will be doomed.

Can you tell that I'm not happy about the way things are going?  

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ZoNation

I've been seeing videos by Alfonzo Rachel for a couple years I think, and I decided that I want to link to him today.  He's the exception to the rule that blacks are racists.  Here is a man who thinks for himself and refuses to support The Won simply because his father was a black man.

Some of his videos are better than others, but I especially like the one when he imitates The Won by holding a teleprompter in his hand.  

I hope this man gets into politics.  He has a quick, likeable wit, and he isn't afraid to go against the vast majority of blacks who are too racist to vote against a communist simply because he is black. 

 Update:  Pajamas TV has now put Alfonzo Rachel on a pay only status.  When his stuff was free it was funny.  It's certainly not worth paying for.  I don't understand Pajamas TV.  I think they have a failed business model.  They need to get much more professional quality before they're worth paying for, and even then, there's too much free political commentary out there that there's no need to be paying for any.

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