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Sadly we didn’t!
COLIN POWELL KNEW HOW TO WIN; WE SHOULD HAVE LISTENED
The day after Gen. Colin Powell died at 84, I was eating chili at a dingy bar in Austin, Texas, when a haggard, middle-aged waiter appeared over my shoulder, inquiring to the Willie Nelson look-alike behind the bar, “Did Colin Powell die?” Willie confirmed he had, and the Texans immediately lamented the great stain of Powell’s decadeslong career of public service, recalling the day the nation’s first Black secretary of state testified on behalf of the George W. Bush administration at the United Nations, selling cherry-picked intelligence to the American people and the world and making the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Dispatched for his credibility as the sole, reluctant warrior in a cabinet stacked with reptilian plutocrats and chicken hawks, Powell helped sell a losing war that cost trillions of dollars, killed thousands of Americans and Iraqis, and pulled much-needed resources and attention away from Afghanistan, which recently moved firmly into the L column of America’s war record after 20 years of prolonged conflict.
While I couldn’t blame the gents at the bar for firstly associating Powell with one of the most regrettable episodes of his professional life, I appreciated that both men further qualified their comments: The man who rose from working-class, Jamaican American roots in the South Bronx to the highest levels of the US government was a great, benevolent leader who championed a military doctrine the United States should embrace if we ever want to win another war.
- Is a vital national security interest threatened?
- Do we have a clear attainable objective?
- Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
- Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
- Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
- Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
- Is the action supported by the American people?
- Do we have genuine broad international support?
Powell, who graduated from City College of New York and earned his Army commission through the ROTC, conceived his template for military action based on lessons learned in Vietnam, where he served two tours of duty.
As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in the George H.W. Bush administration, Powell expanded on principles first articulated in 1984 by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger.
Powell championed the notion that these questions should all be answered affirmatively before the United States should take military action:
- Is a vital national security interest threatened?
- Do we have a clear, attainable objective?
- Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
- Have all other nonviolent policy means been fully exhausted?
- Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
- Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
- Is the action supported by the American people?
- Do we have genuine broad international support?
After 20 years of waging a global war on terror, it should be painfully clear to any military strategist worth his salt that pursuing clear, attainable objectives and plausible exit strategies to avoid endless entanglement are in the best interests of the nation.
Pointing to a series of successful military operations under his tenure as JCS chairman, Powell wrote in 1992, “The reason for our success is that in every instance we have carefully matched the use of military force to our political objectives. … We owe it to the men and women who go in harm’s way to make sure that their lives are not squandered for unclear purposes.”
As President George W. Bush’s first defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld ignored lessons from Korea and Vietnam and oversaw two wars defined by constantly shifting strategic objectives and a lack of any clear exit strategy.
In November 2001, with the Afghanistan war barely a month old, Bush instructed Rumsfeld to discreetly begin reviewing the Pentagon’s war plan for Iraq. Over several months and meetings with Gen. Tommy Franks, head of US Central Command, Rumsfeld pressured the general to reduce the number of troops the plan called for from 400,000 to around 150,000.
In October 2002, Bush made his case for military action against Iraq to members of the House International Relations Committee, saying, “People out there say you cannot fight in Afghanistan and win in Iraq. Defeating two enemies is very difficult, but we will do it.”
Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, who resigned in 2002 from the JCS in protest of Rumsfeld’s invasion plans, later wrote that US forces were sent to Iraq “with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions — or bury the results.”
In February 2003, then Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that a successful invasion and occupation of Iraq would require “several hundred thousand soldiers.”
“We’re talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that’s fairly significant with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems,” Shinseki said.
Two days later, Rumsfeld and then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz dismissed Shinseki’s assessment in the media. Rumsfeld said Shinseki’s numbers were “far from the mark,” and Wolfowitz used the words “wildly off the mark.”
Rumsfeld’s legacy is a generation of American warriors for whom victory proved as elusive as the moral authority with which the Iraq war was waged. History should remember Rumsfeld for the cartoon-villain levels of hubris and smug sophistry with which he helped launch us headlong into a foreign policy of continuous global war driven by nebulous notions of what victory actually looks like.
Powell, on the other hand, understood what was required to win wars, and he stood as the antidote to neoconservative chicken hawks like Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Wolfowitz. One can only wonder what might have been if Powell had been defense secretary instead of Rumsfeld, or if any of the architects of war in Iraq and Afghanistan had embraced Powell’s doctrine of using decisive military force to win quickly and definitively.
“Once a decision for military action has been made, half-measures and confused objectives exact a severe price in the form of a protracted conflict which can cause needless waste of human lives and material resources, a divided nation at home, and defeat,” Powell wrote in the 1992 National Military Strategy. “Therefore, one of the essential elements of our national military strategy is the ability to rapidly assemble the forces needed to win — the concept of applying decisive force to overwhelm our adversaries and thereby terminate conflicts swiftly with a minimum loss of life.”
When the US invaded Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 with the goal of capturing or killing Usama Bin Laden and destroying al Qaeda and its surrogates, President George W. Bush opted for a strategy that minimized the number of US troops deployed. Rumsfeld’s plan relied primarily on the CIA and small teams of US Special Forces who advised and funded anti-Taliban militias such as the Northern Alliance.
By December 2001, Bin Laden and his followers were on the run and holed up in the mountain stronghold of Tora Bora in northeastern Afghanistan. As commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade, then Brig. Gen. James Mattis had 4,000 Marines in the Afghan theater. When he requested permission from US Central Command to surround and seal off Bin Laden’s lair and finish the mission, CENTCOM Commander Gen. Tommy Franks denied the request.
“The Bush administration later concluded that the refusal of Centcom to dispatch the Marines — along with their failure to commit U.S. ground forces to Afghanistan generally — was the gravest error of the war,” Mary Anne Weaver wrote in The New York Times Magazine in 2005.
If Franks and Rumsfeld had opted to apply “decisive force to overwhelm our adversaries and thereby terminate conflicts swiftly,” Bin Laden likely would have been killed or captured and al Qaeda routed within months of the 9/11 attacks. Instead, about 800 al Qaeda fighters escaped Tora Bora, and Bin Laden left around Dec. 16, making his way over the border to Pakistan, where he stayed until he was killed by members of SEAL Team 6 almost a decade later.
Colin Powell was an American warrior, a trailblazer, one of our finest military leaders — a shining example of what we talk about when we talk about the American dream. Some will remember him as the man who closed the sale for the Iraq war. To me, he will always be the man we should have listened to about when and how to go to war. I can think of more than 7,000 reasons why Powell’s doctrine has enduring value — perhaps now more than ever.
I wonder if we can hear the general now that he’s gone.
Read Next: After Afghanistan, It’s Time To Admit Counterinsurgency Is a Losing Doctrine
ETHAN E. ROCKE
Born in Los Angeles and raised in California’s Sierra Nevada foothills, Ethan is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning photographer and filmmaker. He served as an infantryman with the 101st Airborne Division, deploying once to Kosovo for peacekeeping operations. After leaving the Army, he joined the US Marine Corps as a “storyteller of Marines,” serving in Okinawa and the Asia-Pacific region with III Marine Expeditionary Force and at the Marine Corps Motion Picture and Television Liaison Office in Los Angeles, where he served as a consultant on dozens of television shows and documentaries and several feature films. His work has been published in Maxim Magazine, American Legion Magazine and many others. He is co-author of “The Last Punisher: A SEAL Team THREE Sniper’s True Account of the Battle of Ramadi.”
A couple weeks ago an article was posted by a certain Michael Anton which contains one true and interesting point, drenched in enough manure to solve the coming phosphate supply issues before they ever get started. I meant for this to go up much sooner, but was busy and then caught Xi’s Death Rot.
Let’s dive straight in:
Regime propaganda is so ubiquitous that even if, like me, you make no effort to seek it out and even take steps to avoid it, you can’t help but notice that our masters have fastened onto a new narrative: the coming “civil war.”
This was the crux of all the maudlin, dishonest January 6 retrospectives, of several “think pieces,” and at least three new books: America is facing a second civil war and it will be started by the Right.
These first two paragraphs are the true and interesting part. The Enemy does indeed want a war, and wants us to fire the first shot to provide them with their casus belli.
But this is not new. Anyone who lived through or has read history of the 80s and 90s remembers the hysteria which was stirred up about “right wing militias”, where every policy and action seemed tuned perfectly to piss off the barely stable loose cannons on the right which the Enemy was *sure* existed in large numbers.
This eventually culminated (with the help of some political existence-justification on the part of the ATF) in the Waco massacre. Followed by the Oklahoma City retaliatory strike, even though that came not from the “right”, but the even more unusual breed of libertarian terrorist. After a while this cooled down, and with the changing administration, cultural shifts in the generally accepted view of the 2nd Amendment, and 9/11, this all sunk into the background.
Later upon the ascendancy of His Resplendent Imperial Majesty Obama First Of His Name there was a renewed push to categorize everyone who failed to bow on command as a potential terrorist, now with added infrastructure left by the response to 9/11. Fortunately like the inevitable final gun ban to end all bans after Sandy Hook, it all came to nothing.
Later still when Trump won when he wasn’t supposed to, and then didn’t pre-emptively surrender the way Republicans are supposed to, The Enemy decided that the problem was that they hadn’t gone far enough: no longer would Americans be treated as a declining minority of the population, doomed to irrelevance. Now at least half the country would be openly treated as the root of all evil, to be broken or destroyed. Which brings us to the present day. After Horus stab-, er, after Brandon’s Most Comprehensive Fraud Organization in History finished Fortifying Their Democracy(tm) they started back on the old plot thread, updated to $CURRENT_YEAR, and it has continued unto this day.
Really? With what? In one of his more lucid moments,
Oh dear… this is nose-diving fast…
Joe Biden himself noted that the disaffected on the Right have no chance of taking on the United States government without F-15s and nukes.
Mostly because Lord Brandon, Most Senile of His Name, is and always has been an imbecile who failed to learn a single military lesson in his entire political career despite ample opportunities (frequently caused or helped by him).
Like the blind squirrel finding a nut, the old man was onto something.
Mostly the location of the nearest young girl, but that isn’t relevant to the subject at hand.
The government’s overwhelming advantages in technology,
“Captain! The $TECH is being $TECHed by the $ALIEN_TECH!”
“Divert the $AUXILIARY_TECH to the $OTHER_TECH Mr. Plot Point!”
“Technology” is a rather wide net to cast. Care to specify, or are we just treating it as magic?
firepower,
What firepower advantage? Small arms are close enough to parity as to not matter, and may be easily supplemented where that is not the case.
Heavy weapons on the other hand require a supply train and crews to keep them operating. There are few military situations which suck quite as badly as having your supply train completely surrounded by enemies.
And if you somehow solve that impossible problem, good luck trying to *use* any of those toys without racking up levels of collateral damage which will drive the rest of the country against you within about 12 hours of weapon release.
manpower,
We can add Arithmetic to the list of subjects you don’t understand.
The US population outnumbers the military well over 10:1. Even if we assume shockingly low numbers of restorationist resistance you quickly lose all hope of getting the kind of force ratios necessary to have any confidence in victory.
money,
‘s ok; we have printers too.
transportation,
Just how much transportation do you think is needed? If there is one thing that most of the non-American world agrees on it is how we have too much independent transportation infrastructure.
supply networks,
On the one hand we have a massive government logistics bureaucracy. On the other hand we have millions of people each solving their supply problem at the local individual level.
Economics is pretty clear on which one of these curbstomps the other.
surveillance tools
I guess it is a good thing the government is run by perfect incompetents who can’t help broadcasting their every move.
And while you may have spy software everywhere we have Weaponized Autism, which has amply demonstrated it’s overwhelming superiority in recent years.
*happy thoughts about the 4chan airstrikes on ISIS*
and much else would be so lopsided
That’s true enough…
as to make the military buzzword “asymmetric” a grim joke.
Add “asymmetric” to the list of concepts you don’t understand.
Except that unlike the Goatisexuals we actually believe in weird concepts like “aiming”, and “fire discipline”.
Think, instead, Bambi versus Godzilla.
Hmmmm. Something so difficult to see from the towering hulk that it may as well be invisible.
I like this comparison.
To fight a civil war, you have to organize.
Add “Americans” to the list.
But organizing is all but impossible for those who genuinely dream of taking on the state.
Explain the organizational infrastructure of one guy who is pissed off and decides to setup with a 6.5 Creedmoor half a mile from a government building.
That’s the main killing power behind what you are fighting. And we are still ignoring the demonstrated competence of The Enemy…
The U.S. government is incompetent at many (most?) of its assigned responsibilities.
My apologies: you did have some truths left to speak.
But it’s quite good at keeping tabs on any hint of “right-wing” “insurrectionary” impulses. That task is made much easier by the fact that there is so little such activity to monitor—so little, in fact, that the feds increasingly feel compelled to incite it.
So close and yet so far…..
The reason there is “so little” “right-wing insurrection” is because almost all of what is considered that — the stuff which isn’t just “he has an opinion I don’t like therefore terrorist” — are people who are only barely connected to the right except by the vaguest similarities. An important tell is how many of them are hyper-collectivists, which also is key to understanding how they can flip-flop between apparently-left and apparently-right so easily. Secondly, the people we are talking about tend to be the dumbest members of any room they are in. And as you (correctly) hint, they are 90% glowie anyway.
But this question also depends on what you consider “right wing insurrection”. If you are talking about a half-dozen fruitcakes with an underpants-gnomes plan then no there won’t be many. Mostly because troublesome fruitcakes are a very small problem no matter what the subject is.
On the other hand if you are talking about people who think most or all of the U.S. government need to be killed, I have bad news for you. A large swath of the country considers that question settled and are now concerned with the doctrinal issues of whether it is best to follow the teachings of St. Augusto of the Whirling Blades, or St. Tepes of the Artificial Forest.
It would be hard to hide a mass movement of people gearing up to fight a civil war. Do you see one anywhere? I don’t.
No..…
Nononono, *no one* is that oblivious. Even Cortez the Conservative Dream Girl isn’t that delusional.
You are in a country where, when the people get nervous, they gulp down the entire world production of ammunition for years at a time without even blinking. You are talking about a country who’s response to the collapse of the Soviet empire was to spend a couple decades buying up the entire contents of their armories, and then started complaining that there wasn’t enough.
And these days that doesn’t just include the fact that it is *normal* for individuals to have enough weapons and ammunition to supply a squad for an entire war. But in many cases the training to use them with frightening efficiency at all ranges, body armor equal or better to anything the military has (gets complicated when soldiers or their families are buying civilian armor to use in combat….), and state of the art night vision.
If there were one, don’t you think the feds would be all over it?
Hard to do when you are legally not allowed to just arrest anyone who has a gun and speaks their mind. That would be why the glowies are out and about; casus bellis aren’t going to make themselves.
Of course they would. And don’t you think regime media would be blaring about it 24/7? Again—of course. This is a classic case of a dog not barking. Silence is confirmation that nothing is happening.
Add the endless attempts at gun control to the not-understood list…..
Organization, like civil war, requires elites. Indeed civil wars, like all wars, are fought between two opposing factions of elites. Even backwoods insurgencies have leaders. Where are the elites poised to lead red America in a civil war? Who are they? There is Trump to be sure, and regime propaganda insists that he’s a modern-day Jeff Davis-Robert E. Lee hybrid. But this is the same Trump who spent January 6 tweeting. The real elites made sure that was his last day on that platform—and then impeached him for the second time. The real elites—Republican and Democrat alike—wish he would crawl into a hole and die. Trump may have tens of millions of committed followers. But a real civil war requires generals and colonels and captains and lieutenants and sergeants. Go ahead—name some. I’ll wait.
Add Ameri-, oh wait, already added that to the list. We’ll skip over that for now.
In your world no one has ever rose to prominence during a war. They all apparently existed fully formed beforehand.
Also we are Americans. We don’t bow before self-appointed kings you elitist piece of reptile shit. If war comes, it is precisely a war between Americans, and people like you. But don’t get too comfy and think this will be limited to America; the news from the rest of the world has quite the remarkable pattern to it these days….
Granted, some on the Right speculate about the possibility or desirability of a “national divorce.” But they are in all cases proposing a peaceful way out of the present impasse—a parting that would be, if not necessarily amicable, at least orderly and bloodless. It’s one thing to argue that such is not possible; that’s a reasonable position, though one I think weaker than its alternative. It’s another to accuse advocates of national divorce of advocating or wishing for violence. That’s simply a lie.
The National Divorce scheme is mostly an attempt to limit the tsunami of blood to the deep blue infestations and the border regions around them. No one in their right mind seriously thinks everything will be happiness and sunshine, at least not if they have the faintest clue of how totalizing ideologies such as leftism work. To some extent it is also an attempt to move the Overton window, but take note: just past divorce on that path is “I shot the guy in the face so he would stop hitting me”.
So what’s going on? Two things, I think—one conscious, the other less so.
The conscious effort is what’s known in national security geek speak as a “psy-op,” a.k.a., a “psychological operation.” These are coordinated efforts to use propaganda, disinformation, truth and half-truth, to influence the target’s thinking in ways favorable to those behind the op. It’s not simply propaganda; that is, not Tokyo Rose merely telling American Marines they’re destined to lose. Seemingly fact-based lies are an essential element to a psy-op. Think Tokyo Rose telling Marines about to hit the beach that an American carrier has been sunk when it hasn’t.
Commonly known as Tuesday in CURRENT_YEAR.
I’ve been curious for a while; how much do you get paid for work like that anyway?
Psy-ops can have many objectives, demoralization being the most common. But they can also be used to prep the ground for other operations, to create opportunities that otherwise might not present themselves.
Which is one of the major reasons why The Enemy is having so much trouble now. It used to be that they had near-total narrative dominance, and could push whatever idea they wanted. That dominance is *gone*. And they don’t know how to write narratives which will stand up to any level of scrutiny.
That’s what’s going on now. The regime wishes to crush all actual and potential opposition. To do this, it needs to criminalize dissent. But doing that runs against the letter and spirit of the great charters of American liberty, and against the grain of the American character.
The Enemy’s vaunted “Arc of History” has been tilting away from them for a while, and they have become increasingly desperate. Now all they have left is to try to cow the general population into submission through overt demonstration of power, which is just making people angrier.
To do what they want to do requires changing public opinion. Or, more specifically, it requires wearing down Americans’ inborn resistance to censorship and political persecution.
Sad to see someone understand it that clearly while they are also working to help it along.
But as much as Americans hate those things, they also hate and fear even the prospect of terrorism, civil strife, and domestic conflict.
Which is part of the reason Americans have tried to make as clear as possible that certain lines will get the line crossers shot. So that hopefully the warning will eliminate the need for the actual shooting.
And why do you think *that* poorly of Americans? That they will undergo any abuse so long as it isn’t civil war?
Here we come to another dog resolutely not barking.
*continous deafening brrrrrrrr of weapons factories is slowly drowned out by chants of Let’s Go Brandon which are themselves drowned out by an endless honking*
There is no terrorism, civil strife, or domestic conflict—at least not coming from the Right. Yet the Department of Justice recently created a “domestic terrorism unit” to target “those who are motivated by racial animus, as well as those who ascribe to extremist anti-government and anti-authority ideologies.”
You’ve adopted The Enemy’s categorizations. And then set up the strawman that if the shooting isn’t in full swing it cannot ever start.
Read carefully that unusually candid statement. They aren’t going after actual terrorists or terrorist acts. I suppose they would if they could find any. But there aren’t any to be found. So instead they’re targeting motives, animus, and ideologies—i.e., ideas and feelings, not actual acts.
The closest thing they have is January 6—an unplanned, unarmed, inchoate protest in which the only victims of violence were protesters. The regime is trying to brainwash everyone that January 6 was the equivalent of Pearl Harbor and 9/11. But it’s not working—three-quarters of Americans think it was “a protest that went too far”—so the regime needs a Plan B.
“Too far” is an odd way of saying they failed to leave a single piked head in their wake…
And that’s to sow disinformation of a coming “civil war.” Historians, philosophers, and survivors of civil wars all agree that they are the worst of all wars. Hence the desire to avoid them is understandably overwhelming, justifying (in many minds) almost any measures, including many that would be unthinkable absent the alleged threat. If the regime can stoke enough fear of an imminent civil war, suddenly all kinds of draconian measures that are presently out of the question will become possible.
It’s also the reason Americans haven’t started shooting yet. Because if there is any way to avoid it which isn’t worse than the disease it needs to be tried first.
For this reason, there is perhaps no more urgent rhetorical task right now than to demonstrate, repeatedly, the falseness and dangerousness of this narrative. In that respect (as in many others) Julie Kelly remains a national treasure.
Annnnnd after a couple somewhat reasonable paragraphs we are back to Conservatard Surrender Chants.
No. The correct way to deal with this situation is to make it as clear as possible to the enemy that if they try to start a war every single one of them will die horribly, either by American hands, or to provide extra organs when they go running to their CCP friends.
Typically, the first rule of a psy-op is that you do not talk about the psy-op. And that remains the case with this one—to a point. But interestingly, regime voices have chosen this moment not merely to acknowledge the existence of psy-ops but to praise and recommend their use to further regime ends.
And after all of this, with every action the regime takes going at cross-purposes to any sane goals, you still haven’t clued in to how incompetent and out of control they are.
That may be a coincidence. Or it may emanate from an uncharacteristic sense of self-awareness on the part of the ruling class.
The administration’s official position on current problems is Let Them Drink Margaritas. That is on top of the decades of projection.
We aren’t even in the same universe as the one where the lizards have self-awareness.
Certainly some of them believe the nonsense that the Right is yearning and preparing for civil war.
For yearning, it’s the projection, because their hellspawned chaos cult says that slaughter is how they get to utopia.
As for preparations, if the US weapons industry brrrrrrrs any harder it will crack open the San Andreas fault and push most of the problem into the Pacific.
But just as certainly, many do not. The second rule of a psy-op is that those mounting it must be able to distinguish truth from falsehood.
You clearly spent too much time in D.C. and it rotted whatever brain you once had. If you donate what is left to science we might be able to figure out why GOP politicians keep stabbing the country in the back once they fall under D.C.’s spell.
The Enemy can’t even distinguish today’s lie from yesterday’s, let alone the truth.
It’s possible that some who know they’re lying feel bad about it, at least on some subconscious level.
Lizards don’t have consciences.
It’s also possible, even likely, that many elites intuit that if a civil war were to come, they would bear the lion’s share of the blame: for despoiling middle America for decades, and then for demonizing decent, normal people for daring to object to their despoilation. One way to cope, psychologically, with the guilty conscience that may arise from harming so many for so long is to contrive rationalizations for why the victims are evil and deserve it.
Also known as “Leftism 101”.
The truth is that for the last 50 years, and accelerating greatly over the last 10, America’s elites have relentlessly divided the country, strip-mined its institutions, leeched its wealth, and attacked a large portion of its people. Those actions, taken together, may be said to be almost a recipe for civil war. Perhaps the smarter elites have concluded that such a war is now inevitable and they want to get a jumpstart on assigning blame.
Make up your mind. Either we are on a path with a realistic chance of civil war or we aren’t. You don’t get it both ways.
A cynical person (not me!)
Of course not. Cynicism requires at least the approximate intelligence and awareness of the world around you as is contained in your average anglerfish.
might wonder if civil war is not exactly what the ruling class wants and is trying to provoke.
Well you can’t have the Glorious People’s Revolution without a little prodding. Gorram workers keep failing to do a Marxism as they should….
We might therefore analogize every fresh provocation to those feds who apparently entrapped some very imprudent men into trying to kidnap the governor of Michigan.
Such a complicated case that one…… on one hand fuck the FBI, on the other hand fuck antifa (who the idiots seem to have been), on the gripping hand fuck Whitmer (not that way, ew).
“Why can’t they all lose?”
They want you not just to talk about civil war,
The 80s called and want their social developments back.
but to begin taking concrete actions
Now the 90s are on the phone yelling for you….. wait a minute….
that they can insist are preludes to war.
Dammit now you’ve got the 2010s yelling as well! We don’t even *have* that many phones!
Then they will have free rein to impose ever more censorship, surveillance, no-knock raids, computer and records seizures, asset confiscation, frivolous (but deadly serious) criminal charges, endless pretrial detention, and draconian sentences for misdemeanors and noncrimes.
On the one hand… Tuesday.
On the other hand if we are talking a full ramp up I guess it’s open season on the bidirectional shooting range then.
So my advice is: don’t give them any excuse. Be careful what you say and do. You may complain: “But it’s unfair that a stray comment might be used to throw me in federal lockup while leftist allies can loot and torch whole cities and get off scot-free.”
Indeed it is. But this whole system, this whole regime, is unfair—to you. That’s the whole point of it.
So knuckle under like a good little serf. Who knows! If you work extra hard to make sure the dinner is perfect and the kids aren’t a bother he might be satisfied with only slapping you a few times tonight instead of the full bone-cracking beatdown.
If there is anything you have proven in this bucket of slop, it’s that your life is run on the same setup as the Enemy: you completely disconnect from the state of the country, and then decide that if you don’t personally see something it doesn’t exist.
[This article only became funnier because of the delay, now that The Great Honkening is afoot]
Rick (Humphrey Bogart, L) and Sam (Dooley Wilson), in “Casablanca.” (Warner Bros.)
Casablanca: After 80 Years
Commentary
There is something fitting about the movie “Casablanca” having its 80th birthday while the world teeters on war over Ukraine and Taiwan—and the Iranians work overtime to get a nuclear weapon that can be delivered by missile.
We may be in the most dangerous pre-war environment since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, when the United States and the Soviet Union came periously close to a military collision.
In this period of tension, it is fitting that we are celebrating one of the greatest films ever made.
“Casablanca” was the great movie from World War II. More than that, it was a truly historic movie in a way that its creators were probably surprised by.
I have seen “Casablanca” more than 20 times. Whenever I am in a place with a piano player, I ask if they can play “As Time Goes By,” the iconic song which haunts the film. The lyrics always get to me. Just read them and see if they don’t get to you too:
You must remember this,
A kiss is just a kiss.
A sigh is just a sigh.
The fundamental things apply,
As time goes by.
And when two lovers woo,
They still say “I love you.”
On that you can rely.
No matter what the future brings,
As time goes by.
Moonlight and love songs,
Never out of date.
Hearts full of passion,
Jealousy and hate.
Woman needs man,
and man must have his mate.
That no one can deny.
It’s still the same old story,
A fight for love and glory,
A case of do or die.
The world will always welcome lovers,
As time goes by.
As you read these words and remember they were sung about all people –
but with the backdrop of a world war—you can begin to sense the timelessness and personal scale of the movie.
“Casablanca” works because it is both big and small. In the background is the evil of the Nazi machine and the reality of a worldwide war that will determine whether civilization or barbarism is the future. In the foreground is the story of two lovers who desperately want to live out their lives together but find historic reality of the world they are in makes it impossible.
The movie is helped of course by Ingrid Bergman’s breathtaking beauty and extraordinary focus on Humphrey Bogart so that her love seems to come through the screen. Bogart is totally believable as a former romantic (a gunrunner to the Ethiopians against the fascist Italian invasion and a fighter for the pro-western Republic during the Spanish Civil War) who has become bitter because in Paris he found true love and then lost it when Bergman disappeared without explanation.
As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Bergman loves Bogart but her husband, who she thought had been killed in a German concentration camp, had survived although severely hurt. She had gone to his side and was now trapped between her love for Bogart and her duty to help the resistance leader in a world war against Nazi tyranny.
A great deal of the power of “Casablanca” comes from the juxtaposition of two lovers against the backdrop of a world war. The reality of that world war is driven home by the fact that the movie was released just weeks after the allied invasion of Northern Africa (known as Operation Torch).
The supporting actors are all amazing. Only three members of the cast are American. Virtually all the rest were refugees from Nazi occupied Europe.
So, in the stirring scene in which “La Marseillaise” is sung to drown out a group of Nazis singing “Die Wacht am Rhein,” the cast members have authentic tears running down their checks, because they were all real refugees who were deeply emotional about being forced out of their homelands by real Nazis.
Appreciation for “Casablanca” and its place as an extraordinary movie, perhaps one of the greatest of all American films, has grown over time. It won numerous awards upon release and was almost universally considered an instant classic. If you have seen the film, you will recognize how worthy it is of these accolades.
If you have never seen “Casablanca” now is the time to get out the popcorn, pull up the movie, and settle in for an extraordinary experience.
Entertainment aside, it’s important to watch because our generation may find itself tested as our grandparents were. “Casablanca” is a good reminder that freedom and patriotism won in the past—and freedom and patriotism can win now.
From Gingrich360.com
All the other 7 episodes are here! Grumpy
Huh! Grumpy
A former Bronx resident attending college in Tennessee has been arrested and charged with over 300 gun-related crimes. The police say the man, Shakor Rodriguez, 23, sold 73 of the guns to an undercover police officer in New York.
As reported by the Bronx District Attorney’s Violent Criminal Enterprise Bureau, Rodriguez was enrolled at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, where he is accused of buying guns, ammunition, and magazines to resell in his home state.
The police are continuing to investigate the case to determine how and where he acquired the guns. He is also facing charges of selling “high-capacity” magazines which are restricted in New York.
“According to the investigation by the NYPD Firearms Investigations Unit and the Bronx District Attorney’s Violent Criminal Enterprise Bureau, dubbed ‘Operation Overnight Express,’ between July 17, 2020 and December 22, 2021, in the Bronx and Manhattan, Shakor Rodriguez, also known as ‘Sha,’ allegedly sold an undercover officer 73 firearms, of which 59 were loaded, as well as over 40 high capacity magazines, including multiple drum magazines. The undercover paid typically between $1,000 and $1,500 per gun.”
“The defendant allegedly brought these semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines up from the south, sometimes transporting them in a duffle bag by bus,” said District Attorney Clark. “Dozens of the firearms were loaded and four are considered assault weapons.”
“The NYPD worked diligently to intercept these deadly weapons before they hit our streets,” he added. “Bronxites are dying from gunfire and we cannot tolerate one more illegal gun in our community.”
“Stopping traffickers who flood our streets with illegal guns is mission critical in our work to smash the Iron Pipeline,” said New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell. “The NYPD’s officers, working with their prosecutorial partners in the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, are the first line of defense in protecting our residents, our families, and our children from the scourge of gun violence and I commend their work in this important case.”
Rodriguez is charged in two indictments totaling 304 counts, including criminal sale of a firearm, criminal possession of a weapon, criminal possession of a firearm and possession of ammunition.
Categories
What a Stud is all that I can say!
Robert L. Howard
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Robert L. Howard
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Colonel Robert L. Howard
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| Born | July 11, 1939 Opelika, Alabama |
| Died | December 23, 2009 (aged 70) Waco, Texas |
| Buried |
Arlington National Cemetery Section 7A Grave 138
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| Allegiance | United States |
| Service/ |
 United States Army |
| Years of service | 1956–1992 |
| Rank | Colonel |
| Unit | 101st Airborne Division 5th Special Forces Group MACV-SOG Special Operations Command Korea |
| Battles/wars | Vietnam War |
| Awards | Medal of Honor Distinguished Service Cross Silver Star Defense Superior Service Medal Legion of Merit (4) Bronze Star (4) Purple Heart (8) Meritorious Service Medal (3) Air Medal (3) Joint Service Commendation Army Commendation Medal (7) |
| Other work | Department of Veterans Affairs |
Robert Lewis Howard (July 11, 1939 – December 23, 2009) was the most highly decorated officer of Vietnam United States Army Special Forces and Medal of Honor recipient of the Vietnam War.
He was wounded 14 times over 54 months of combat, was awarded the Medal of Honor, eight Purple Hearts, a Distinguished Service Cross,[a] a Silver Star, and four Bronze Stars.
He was nominated for the Medal of Honor three times over a 13-month period but received lesser medals for the first two nominations, which were for actions performed in Cambodia where the U.S. was fighting covertly. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on December 30, 1968, his third nomination.
He retired from the US Army after 36 years of service as a full colonel. He was one of the most decorated soldiers in the Vietnam War and was “said to be the most decorated service member in the history of the United States”.
He died as a result of pancreatic cancer, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on February 22, 2010.
Biography[edit]
Howard enlisted in the Army in 1956 at Montgomery, Alabama and retired as colonel, Army Special Forces, in 1992.
Howard’s service in Vietnam included assignments with 1/327th Airborne Infantry, 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, 5th Special Forces Group and MACV-SOG
As a staff sergeant of the highly classified Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG), Howard was recommended for the Medal of Honor on three occasions for three individual actions during thirteen months spanning 1967–1968. The first two nominations were downgraded to a Silver Star and the Distinguished Service Cross due to the covert and top secret nature of the operations in which Howard participated.
As a sergeant first class of the SOG, he risked his life during a rescue mission in Cambodia on December 30, 1968, while second in command of a platoon-sized Hatchet Force that was searching for missing American soldier Robert Scherdin for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor.[2]: 205–6 [3] He learned of the award over a two-way radio while under enemy fire, immediately after being wounded, resulting in one of his eight Purple Hearts.[4]
Howard was wounded 14 times during a 54-month period in the Vietnam War. For his distinguished service, Howard received a direct appointment from Master Sergeant to First Lieutenant in December 1969.
Howard graduated from Ranger School class 7-73 in May 1973 and served with the 2nd Ranger Battalion at Fort Lewis, Washington as company commander. From 1977 to 1978 he served as Mountain Ranger Training instructor.
Howard later served as officer-in-charge of Special Forces training at Camp Mackall, near Ft. Bragg, N.C., and later, commanding the Mountain Ranger Training Camp at Dahlonega, Georgia
Howard graduated from the National War College, Class 1987–1988.
He received two master’s degrees during his Army career which spanned 1956 to 1992. Howard retired as a colonel in 1992.[5]
He was one of the most decorated soldiers in the Vietnam War.[6][7] NBC News said that Howard may have been the most highly decorated American soldier of the modern era,[8] while KWTX-TV states that he was “said to be the most decorated service member in the history of the United States”.[9] John Plaster in his 1998 book SOG: The Secret Wars of America’s Commandos in Vietnam states that Howard “remains to this day the most highly decorated American soldier.”[2]: 204
His residence was in Texas and he spent much of his free time working with veterans until the time of his death. He also took periodic trips to Iraq to visit active duty troops.[8]
Howard died of pancreatic cancer at a hospital in Waco, Texas, on December 23, 2009. He was survived by four children and five grandchildren.[5][10]
His funeral was in Arlington National Cemetery on February 22, 2010. [11]
Legacy[edit]
In 2014, Howard was announced as the recipient of United States Special Operations Command‘s Bull Simons award for his “lifetime achievements in Special Operations”.[12]
In April 2017 a building at the Rowe Training Facility on Camp Mackall was named Howard Hall in his honor.[13]
Medal of Honor Citation[edit]
The President of the United States in the name of The Congress takes pride in presenting the MEDAL OF HONOR to
FIRST LIEUTENANT
ROBERT L. HOWARD
UNITED STATES ARMYfor service as set forth in the following CITATION:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. 1st Lt. Howard (then SFC .), distinguished himself while serving as platoon sergeant of an American-Vietnamese platoon which was on a mission to rescue a missing American soldier in enemy controlled territory in the Republic of Vietnam. The platoon had left its helicopter landing zone and was moving out on its mission when it was attacked by an estimated 2-company force. During the initial engagement, 1st Lt. Howard was wounded and his weapon destroyed by a grenade explosion. 1st Lt. Howard saw his platoon leader had been wounded seriously and was exposed to fire. Although unable to walk, and weaponless, 1st Lt. Howard unhesitatingly crawled through a hail of fire to retrieve his wounded leader. As 1st Lt. Howard was administering first aid and removing the officer’s equipment, an enemy bullet struck 1 of the ammunition pouches on the lieutenant’s belt, detonating several magazines of ammunition. 1st Lt. Howard momentarily sought cover and then realizing that he must rejoin the platoon, which had been disorganized by the enemy attack, he again began dragging the seriously wounded officer toward the platoon area. Through his outstanding example of indomitable courage and bravery, 1st Lt. Howard was able to rally the platoon into an organized defense force. With complete disregard for his safety, 1st Lt. Howard crawled from position to position, administering first aid to the wounded, giving encouragement to the defenders and directing their fire on the encircling enemy. For 31⁄2 hours 1st Lt. Howard’s small force and supporting aircraft successfully repulsed enemy attacks and finally were in sufficient control to permit the landing of rescue helicopters. 1st Lt. Howard personally supervised the loading of his men and did not leave the bullet-swept landing zone until all were aboard safely. 1st Lt. Howard’s gallantry in action, his complete devotion to the welfare of his men at the risk of his life were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.
General Orders: Department of the Army, General Orders No. 16 (March 24, 1971)
Action Date: December 30, 1968
Service: Army
Regiment: 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne)
Division: 1st Special Forces
Distinguished Service Cross Citation[edit]
Robert L. Howard The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918 (amended by act of July 25, 1963), takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Sergeant First Class Robert Lewis Howard (ASN: RA-14628152), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations involving conflict with an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam, while serving with Command and Control (Central), 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces. Sergeant First Class Howard distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous actions on 21 November 1967, as Special Forces Advisor to a joint American and Vietnamese reconnaissance patrol conducting a search mission near the Laotian border. His patrol discovered a huge rice and ammunition cache surrounded by an enemy bunker complex. Sergeant Howard led a small team to provide security while the remainder of the unit began to destroy the stored supplies. His team encountered four North Vietnamese Army soldiers, and Sergeant Howard killed them with a fierce burst of rifle fire. He and his men were immediately pinned down by a murderous curtain of fire which erupted from a nearby enemy machine gun position. With complete disregard for his safety, Sergeant Howard crawled toward the emplacement and killed a North Vietnamese sniper who was firing at him as he maneuvered. He then charged the bunker, eliminating its occupants with rifle fire. A second machine gun position unleashed a savage barrage. Sergeant Howard moved his troops to a covered location and directed an air strike against the fortified bunker. While assessing the bomb damage, Sergeant Howard was fired upon by North Vietnamese soldiers in the bunker who had survived the blasts. Pinned down directly outside the strongpoint with a blazing machine gun barrel only six inches above his head, he threw a hand grenade into the aperture of the emplacement, killing the gunners and temporarily silencing the weapon. He then dashed to his team’s location and secured a light anti-tank weapon. As the enemy machine gun resumed firing, Sergeant Howard stood up amid a withering hail of bullets, fired his weapon, and completely demolished the position. His fearless and determined actions in close combat enabled the remainder of the patrol to destroy the enemy cache. Sergeant First Class Howard’s extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.
Service: Army
Division: 1st Special Forces
GENERAL ORDERS:
General Orders: Headquarters, U.S. Army, Vietnam, General Orders No. 2018 (May 2, 1968)Citation:
Action Date: 21-Nov-67
Service: Army
Rank: Sergeant First Class
Company: Command and Control (Central)
Regiment: 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne)
Division: 1st Special Forces
Silver Star Citation[edit]
Robert L. Howard The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Sergeant First Class Robert Lewis Howard (ASN: RA-14628152), United States Army, for gallantry in action while engaged in military operations involving conflict with an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam, while serving with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces. Sergeant First Class Howard distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous actions from 12 to 20 November 1968, during an operation deep within enemy-held territory. As his platoon was being inserted into the area, it came under heavy fire from all directions. Sergeant Howard leaped from his helicopter before it touched down and began to return fire, providing protection for his men while they dismounted and moved safely off the landing zone. Seeing two enemy soldiers in a wood line, he charged their position and killed them both. When the unit was attacked by a company-size force on the night of 16 November, he went to each platoon member, encouraging them and directing their fire while completely exposing himself to the communist barrage. Two days later while Sergeant Howard was leading the point element, the platoon was ambushed by an estimated two North Vietnamese Army companies. He skillfully maneuvered his men so that the enemy was caught in a deadly crossfire and the ambush was broken. The following day, Sergeant Howard had again taken the point element when he observed an estimated battalion-size ambush. Although wounded in the initial exchange of fire, he exposed himself to the aggressors to place effective fire on them and enable his platoon to take cover. Moving from position to position, he administered first aid to the wounded and set up a landing zone so that they could be evacuated. As the first ambulance helicopter came in, it was struck by hostile machine gun fire and burst into flames. Sergeant Howard, although wounded a second time, ran one hundred and fifty meters to where the ship had crashed and rescued a trapped pilot from the blazing wreckage. Once the entire crew was free from the aircraft, he led them back to the platoon while providing covering fire. Three hours later another helicopter succeeded in landing and the casualties were evacuated, but Sergeant Howard refused to leave. The next morning, he saw three North Vietnamese soldiers maneuvering towards his element and immediately opened fire, killing them.[14]
Service: Army
Regiment: 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne)
Division: 1st Special Forces
GENERAL ORDERS:
Headquarters, U.S. Army, Vietnam, General Orders No. 371 (February 3, 1969)Citation:
Awards and decorations[edit]
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