tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57136963111724011122024-03-28T12:33:03.297-07:00Cristalen's BlogPhotography TodayCristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-40821664276222131302024-03-28T12:32:00.000-07:002024-03-28T12:32:25.777-07:00India as a force in the world.<p> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 25px;">My schooling did a pretty good job of conditioning me to the power of both the Jewish and Arab cultures as well as the animosity that has plagued their relations since forever.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 25px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 25px;">I was short on specifics, but I definitely understood the depth of their dislike of one another.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 25px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 25px;">My teachers did not do as good a job in educating me about the power of Hinduism and the depth of hard feelings between Hindu and Muslim.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 25px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 25px;">I did not see them as a bunch of rag heads, but neither did I have a clue as to what motivated them to war with one another.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 25px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 25px;">My exploration of foreign cultures started in the Philippines and was energized in East Asia, during the Korean War.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 25px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 25px;">I became fascinated by China and spent a huge amount of my working life trying to figure out what made Chinese people and their cultural offspring tick.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 25px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">While assigned to Thailand, I studied the language with a group of Buddhist priests and learned a little bit about Buddhism. During my assignment to Thailand, I also collected replica samples of traditional Buddhist art and considered myself to be knowledgable about the important role of Buddhism in the world. I went out of my way to avoid acquiring genuine antiques for several reasons the noblest of which was that I thought them the property of the Thai people. The crassest of which was that they were very expensive. I developed a strategy that worked exceptionally well. I would go into an antique shop that I knew to be loaded with replicas being sold as genuine pieces, identify the piece that I wanted, and then ask the price of another similar piece on the other side of the room. When told the price, I would adopt a suitably shocked countenance and exclaim that I had no idea that the piece was a genuine antique. I would then ask the dealer if he, by chance, had a similar piece that was a replica. Some times it worked and sometimes not, but over a decade of trying, I managed to fill out my collection satisfactorily. In the process, I also convinced myself that I knew a lot about Asia.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 25px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 30px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 25px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 30px;">Then I took a trip to Calcutta. One of the objectives of my visit was to collect a representative piece of Hindu art. I found a suitable antique shop and applied my tried-and-true bargaining strategy. In order to impress the elderly gentleman that ran the shop, I waxed eloquently about Asia, drawing on my “vast” knowledge of Buddhism. After listening to me for a polite period of time, he replied by saying, very self-assuredly, that Buddhism was merely “a failed religion” and totally irrelevant to anything of historic significance. The casual, total confidence of the man got my full attention and began my belated thinking about what is today the largest assemblage of people in the entire world: India with 1.48 billion people. (China “only“ has 1.41 billion people.)</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 25px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 30px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 25px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">India and China are currently engaged in difficult border disputes that occasionally deteriorate into low level conflict. India is allied with Russia as it looks nervously at Afghanistan, which it fears could be a problem, should a troublesome relationship with Pakistan morph into all out war. Given that both Pakistan and India are nuclear powers, such a conflict would, of course, have repercussions far beyond their borders. The fascinating imbroglio is further complicated by India being the I in BRICKS, while Pakistan is a key part of China’s new Silk Road that aims at tying China to Western Asia, the Middle East and eventually Europe. I contend that, in a democracy, the voters need to have some minimal understanding of what is happening in the world so that they can choose their leadership intelligently. I suggest that we not only do not have that understanding, we don’t even aspire to having it. We can not stretch our minds to deal with that level of complexity and turn all of our attention instead to the age of the fetus, the number of chips in the bag, the price of gasoline, the proper usage of pronouns, and our precious feelings. Because all of our antagonists are led by one form or another of authoritarian governments, your and my ignorance places us at a significant disadvantage.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 25px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 30px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 25px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There is no question in my mind but that democracy is a superior form of governance as compared with authoritarianism, but it requires, repeat requires, an intelligent electorate. Proclaiming yourself to be democratic is the least important part of being a successful democracy. We are today, destroying our society and we actually know that we are doing it, and yet we continue to do it. I ask myself why and continue to believe it is because we have been protected from reality for too long. We are not yet frightened enough to do the necessary - which is to think. I worry that the event that wakes us up might well be our death knell. For that reason, I continue to advocate that we wake up now - before it is literally too late. Russia, China and North Korea have nuclear weapons sitting on top of satellite guided ballistic missiles. Iran is about to have them too. All four of them are actively engaged in trying to destroy you and me. Why help them?</p><div><br /></div>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-10683315424705123882024-03-27T15:19:00.000-07:002024-03-27T15:22:49.623-07:00<p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;">Reuters has an article out today reporting the FSB’s claim that Kiev, London and Washington were behind the recent ISIS attack on a concert hall in Moscow.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;">Putin appears to be saying the same thing.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;">I suggest that they are merely trying to deflect attention away from the failure of the Russian security apparatus, particularly since there is talk of Washington having warned Moscow that something was in the wind.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;">Because the Kremlin has a fairly tight rein on information dissemination inside Russia, I believe that the Kremlin’s feeble efforts will be effective with a large percentage of the patriotic public that wants to believe in Putin’s Russia.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;">Regime fabrications will not, however, be convincing to the more sophisticated Russian citizen whose thinking will control the future of that country.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;">Those folks will primarily be focused on how well Putin can do in leading Russia to future glories.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;">Presumably they do not want to see him be defeated in Ukraine, whether they agree with the invasion or not.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I am extremely interested in intellectual dissidents inside Russia because I see them as critical to building a different relationship with that enormous country. Putin shares my interest and that accounts for so many Russian political figures falling out of hospital windows to their death. One of the reasons that I deplore Biden’s decision to let Russia invade Ukraine is that the resultant war forced a very large percentage of increasingly western-oriented Russians to flee the country. Their motivation may well have been self-interest in avoiding the rigors of war, but they took with them their fledgling admiration of Western society. I hold that Putin was glad to see them go and that explains why he made no real effort to stop the exodus. Presumably, the ISIS attack on the Moscow concert hall killed and traumatized some percentage of this same group of people. ISIS sees this group of humans as being their principal enemy - no matter their nationality. Radical Islam is not at war with any nationality. Radical Islam is at war with the fundamentals of Western culture. Moscow’s concert hall and New York’s business center were both iconic targets for Radical Islam. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 26px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I, of course, have absolutely no idea who the people are that are currently flooding into this country, but If I were one of our several foreign antagonists, I would be taking advantage of the situation. Clearly, the ethnicity of our new immigrants includes groups of people from regions of the world that include regime’s hostile to our interests. Were I currently in government, I would be looking at the potential for some sort of hostile action by three principal actors: Radical islam, Communist China, and International Crime Syndicates. Predicting who the attacker might be, predicting when the attack might occur, and predicting the security and political impact would be extremely difficult - except in the case of the crime syndicates which are, of course, already fully engaged - but the attack will clearly not be beneficial to you and me. If I were influential, I would elect an intelligent person to lead us. Because I do not see that level of intelligence anywhere on the political horizon, I am pessimistic, particularly since those fears are not the totality of the challenge facing us. We also have to worry about one or the other idiot triggering a nuclear exchange,</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 26px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The “good” news is that I don’t believe that the Chinese Communist Party intends to attack us militarily as long as they assess their overall strategy as being successful and Radical Islam can not presently do more than wound us. That leaves Russia and societal decay as our principal threats at the moment. Unfortunately, Putin is capable of triggering a nuclear exchange, Biden is letting Iran become a nuclear power, and Crime is clearly destroying society. What is going to happen, if we are lucky, is that we will eventually wake up and start pushing back on the stupidity that is currently destroying us. My guess is that the event that serves as our wake up call is going to be painful.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-19381474544675043162024-03-26T12:52:00.000-07:002024-03-26T13:11:30.706-07:00Mexican President Obrador’s interview on 60 Minutes<p> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;">Fox News has an article outlining Mexican President Obrador’s interview on 60 Minutes in which Obrador said that, unless the United States complies with Latin America’s requests for aid, the tide of migrants will continue.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;">The headline, however reads “Mexican President says the flow of migrants will continue unless the US meets his demands.’</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px;">Although there is a typo in the headline, this is a cute effort to protect the alleged veracity of it with a set of quotation marks that only encompass “flow of migrants will continue.’</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 26px;">This is an example of Fox News doing the same thing that the liberal news outlets do all the time. Purposely slanting their reporting to make a point that they believe to be important - even if it is untrue. The implication of the article is that the Mexican President is “demanding” that America provide aid to Latin American countries, where as I believe that he is telling us that our problems with undocumented immigrants will continue unless we address poverty in Latin America. He is also saying, very clearly, that he is not going to go out of his way to help us do the wrong thing. It is an important difference and I absolutely agree with President Obrador. Were I in his shoes, I would do precisely the same thing. I see him as trying to talk sense to a neighbor that is driven by emotion and flip flop politics, not rational thought.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 26px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I also agree with critics of our aid program that it is ineffective, ridden with corruption and is not accomplishing its’ objectives in Latin America or anywhere else. Further more it is symptomatic of the exact same relationship that exists between Western Europe and Africa. Poor people always seek to live in wealthy communities if at all possible. They are poor, not dumb. The situation is compounded by rich countries desire for cheap labor, which encourages them to seek ways to permit a regulated flow of poor people into their countries. Our favored solution is work permits, but there are both good hearted and mischievous people in this country that believe we should permit huge numbers of poor people into the country as a way of improving their lives. Some of these people are motivated by their emotions and some by political machination. I disagree with them because we are unable to absorb this magnitude of outsiders without dangerously straining our own economy and society.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 26px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Immigration is not the only place that Obrador tries to speak truth to us. Drugs is another one. The majority of the drugs that are killing so many Americans do indeed pass through Mexico on their way into this country, but the fundamental problem is not supply, it is demand. Until we eliminate demand, drugs will find their way into America, no matter how much money we throw at trying to stop them and Mexico’s effort to help control them will be inadequate because the cartels are already at war with the central government in Mexico City. I suggest that the root problem is an overly self-indulgent society inside this country. We can’t even control our over-indulgence in fatty foods, let alone resist cocaine or the latest street drug being hyped by representatives of international crime cartels that are in place all over the country and it should not be overlooked that these gangs are also destroying the social fabric in our urban ghettos as well as dividing society into suburban authority and ghetto submission.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 26px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">All of this has important implications for our future and I am arguing that we are not even beginning to come to grips with any of it. Biden has flung the doors of the country open as widely as he possibly can and Trump wants to slam them shut. Neither one of them is remotely interested in providing any real help to anyone outside of our non-existent borders. Trump wants to ignore the “shithole countries” and make America Great Again and Biden wants to throw money at everything from Ukraine and Gaza to Taiwan without engaging in anything real anywhere. Meanwhile China, has during my lifetime, changed from a land of periodic starvation to the second most powerful economy in the world, and they did it without one iota of help from anyone.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 26px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So, if I were influential, I would sit down with Obrador and a few of his neighbors and come up with a plan to improve the economies of Latin America such that the people living there do not want to escape their hell for our nirvana up here in the north, just over a non-existent line in the sand that we choose not to defend. And I would encourage my European friends to do the same thing vis-a-vis Africa and the Middle East. Every single one of my readers will see all of this as impossible and that will, very unfortunately, make it so. We are a group of narrow minded, cowardly, ignoramuses, playing with virtual reality because real reality is too scary and unfathonable for our puny minds. Computers are safer than real life. Masks are safer than speech. Monkeys with hands clamped down hard over eyes, ears and mouths.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 26px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">PS: I skip over the fact that the migrant flow is taking the most aggressive, fittest individuals with the most initiative, out of the host country, which further weakens those economies. I am also skipping over the fact that we have absolutely no idea who these “undocumented immigrants” are and what their intentions are. I am struck by the fact that 911 was carried out by a handful of miscreants, where presently we are inviting in anybody that wants to come in staggering, unknown numbers, for any reason imaginable, and we are even financing them after their arrival. Go ahead, tell me again that we are not the dumbest people in the entire history of mankind, and, oh yeah, it is all because Obrador is being mean to us in not refusing to house millions of people trying to wait out the current flip flop in American immigration policy so that they can get into nirvana. We, you and I, have issues that are far more important! Pronouns, the age of the fetus, gasoline prices, the number of chips in the bag, and our precious, all important, feelings. We do not have time to think about Haiti, we have to put food on our own table. We leave all of that foreign stuff to our tribal leaders.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 26px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Bah! We are the shadow of a once near-great people who have fallen into ignorant, cowardly, self-indulgence, and it is going to get us killed or worse. I’m at the end of a very long life, so my imminent demise is not overly concerning. I’m just massively pissed off that we, you and I, are throwing everything that a lot of very good people worked for away, because it is no longer fashionable to think. Soon, thought will not be permitted, and we won’t even care. “They” will give us head sets with programable reality as the replacement and there will be clear instructions on channel one as to where to stand in line for whatever.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-68401277244346769882024-03-25T10:23:00.000-07:002024-03-25T10:26:02.037-07:00China's objectives in Hong Kong<p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">BBC has an article out today describing the steady strangulation of Hong Kong by Beijing that makes the point that foreign companies are increasingly reluctant to invest in and through Hong Kong because of increased Chinese Communist control of the rules of the economic road.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">The point of the article is that China is making a giant economic mistake.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">The article notes the rise of other economic centers like Singapore that are benefitting from Hong Kong’s impending demise as an international financial center.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">I find it interesting that BBC does not even mention Shanghai, or BRICS, nor does it speculate that China may have wanted to destroy Hong Kong because it was controlled by representatives of Western economic powerhouses.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">(I am not surprised.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">BBC is, after all, British and Hong Kong was London’s cash cow for a very long time.)</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I agree that China may well have made a huge mistake by its actions, but I suggest that it is part of a policy set that Western nations, including the United States, do not fully understand. China is trying to change the fundamentals that undergird the world economy. Our reluctance to come to grips with this point is a major source of confusion in Washington and results in tactical economic policy decisions that are ineffective in protecting our own international economic position. I am without an adequate understanding of the world economy to pass judgment on any individual action by Beijing, vis-a-vis Hong Kong, but I am able to see broad trend lines fairly clearly and I argue that they are not consistent with our interests. In overly simplistic terms, China’s economic influence is expanding while ours is shrinking. Hong Kong’s deterioration and Shanghai’s emergence on the world’s economic stage is consistent with this trend.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I am not saying that China is winning, only that they are engaged in a much larger struggle than most Americans understand and they are making enough progress to continue their policies. Because we are a democracy, this ignorance on our part goes a very long way toward explaining our ineffectiveness in adequately meeting the economic challenge that China presents. We elect politicians that play on our emotions rather than politicians that think. The American public is aware of tactical problems such as China’s involvement in the drug epidemic here in this country, but we are studiously oblivious of Beijing’s effort to reorient the world economy to their benefit. I argue that purposeful blindness inevitably leads to tactical mistakes and seriously risks strategic defeat and/or nuclear obliteration. It is high time for the American public to open its eyes, do its homework, and start thinking more broadly than self about all manner of things to include China.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-84658272797313168882024-03-24T11:13:00.000-07:002024-03-26T12:53:21.040-07:00ISIS Terror Attack in Moscow.<p>The press is, today, full of articles concerning the ISIS attack on a public gathering in Moscow. It appears that US intelligence warned Moscow, but Moscow claims the quality of the warning was insufficient for them to take action. The back and forth reminds me of a similar story emerging from the Hamas attack on the Israeli music festival. My guess is that in both instances we had a glimmer of an idea that something was going to happen, but we did not have enough detail about where and when for the attack to be prevented. Because both attacks were horrific, the host country feels it necessary to discredit the intelligence provided.</p><p>I see the back and forth as being of tactical importance. My interest in the two events is slightly different. I am far more interested in Radical Islam's anger with modern civilization, be it Russian, Chinese, Jewish, American or virtually anything else. Muslim insurgents are at war with all of the rest of us that do not accept Islam as the guiding light for our various societies. Periodically, this provides moments wherein we forget our antipathy to one another and unite in our fear of Radical Islam, but even there we usually fail to find a path forward that permits us to cooperate.</p><p>Today, China enslaves a vast Muslim Uighur population while simultaneously seeking to increase its role in the world at our expense. Russia is doing pretty much the same thing with its Muslim Chetchyn population. We are engaged in hunting down Radical Muslim leaders and assassinating them all over the Middle East and North Africa. None of us are trying to win the hearts and minds of Muslim populations, except perhaps President Biden's feeble tactical electoral effort among Muslim voters inside this country.</p><p>The Muslim world is split between Shia and Sunni. Today, the principal leaders of the two sects are Teheran and Riyadh. Whether we like it or not, we are impacted by the divisions that separate these two formidable entities, as are China, Russia and the rest of the world. I contend that none of us in the non-Muslim world have an adequate strategy that successfully addresses the challenge, and I firmly believe that our own weak-kneed policy vis-a-vis Teheran is extraordinarily dangerous. The people that are in power in Teheran are apocalyptic in their thinking. A nuclear holocaust in the name of Allah would be a good thing, particularly if it obliterated Jews and Americans, even if it martyred Arabs. Martyrdom in the name of Allah is, after all, the greatest honor to which an individual can aspire.</p><p>To the best of my knowledge, no Americans are thinking adequately about the challenge that Radical Islam presents. We see a threat and our knee-jerk reaction is to try to deal with it with bullets and missiles. All our policy does is increase the number of people that hate our guts. Because most of this is happening at village level in "shit hole countries," we are oblivious of it unless and until it bubbles over in places like North Africa ,the Middle East, or New York City. Our response to Radical Islam is one of the very few places where Americans are agreed as to what our policy should be. Kill the leaders with a drone strike on a pickup truck in some far off desert oasis.</p><p>I contend that what is necessary is an all-out effort to bring all peoples into the Western way of thinking and wean it away from Radical islamic thought. That is going to entail extensive, vigorous, expensive, continuing engagement down to the village level. I am not optimistic. Our over-the-horizon assassination strategy is much cheaper and far, far easier to understand than a policy set based on worldwide economic development. I am absolutely convinced that we could do the necessary and increasingly fearful that we will never admit it - neither here in this country nor in any other country in the world. Although our blindness has an origin different from that of our Radical islamic foe, it is, at root, very similar in being all encompassing and pervasive.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-54856030362287196792024-03-23T12:49:00.000-07:002024-03-23T12:53:58.401-07:00The power of domestic American politics in ignorantly shaping our foreign policy.<p>AP, quoting the Financial Times, reports that "The United States has urged Ukraine to halt strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, warning that drone strikes risk provoking retaliation and driving up global oil prices." Other press reports indicate that Washington is pressuring Jerusalem to not "go into Rafah" because too many innocent civilians will be harmed. Cynics, myself included, argue that the Biden Administration takes both positions, not because of any humanitarian consideration, but rather because of domestic American politics. Ukraine's attacks on Russian oil infrastructure adversely impacts the price of oil in the international market and that drives the cost of gasoline up here inside this country, politically disadvantaging the administration in power, Israeli aggressive pursuit of Hamas fighters is causing a backlash inside this country that is adversely impacting Biden's poll numbers. In neither situation, are Biden's protestations sufficient to shape the actions of our allies, let alone the actions of our adversaries.</p><p>I suggest that the ineffectiveness of our influence with our allies is, itself, an important signal to the rest of the world as to the deterioration of our effectiveness as a "world leader." It has long been obvious that we can not stop Putin, or Xi, or the Ayatollah from pursuing policies that are contrary to our own interests and now it is increasingly clear that we can not even influence the governments that we prop up economically. (It has long been obvious that we do not give a fig for anything that happens in the "undeveloped world.") I argue that the fundamental point is that the American people have not thought either Ukraine or Gaza through sufficiently to form a government inside this country that has a firm position on either issue. I am jaundiced enough to believe that both Biden and Trump shape their positions on issues based on how they believe they will be received by a majority of grossly ignorant American voters.</p><p>This is not the first time in history that this situation has arisen. Every president has, to one degree or another, followed this same path throughout the life of this country and we have always managed to blunder through to a surprisingly good end result because we are basically good people. We have periodically had to fight civil and international wars to do it, but, in the end, we prevailed and our democracy emerged "stronger than ever." Never were we able to sustain the peace that we won in the most recent war, but no matter, "history was always on our side." We choose to see our problems exactly the same way today, even though the situation has changed dramatically. Never before have we faced the prospect of a war that would destroy us as well as our enemy - even if we later decide that we had won it. This one is not only going to kill you and me, it is going to poison a significant amount of arable land that is going to change the way in which humans live on this increasingly small spinning chunk of rock.</p><p>I argue that, while it almost certainly will not be the war to end all wars, the next world war will be the war that permanently ends the good life in much of the world to include here in North America. I suggest that it is high time for the citizenry of this democracy to eschew inadequate leadership and accept our own responsibilities. Inherent in that transformation will be the need to understand that the quality of our life ultimately depends on the quality fo everybody-else's lives. Everybody in the entire world. Very unfortunately, I do not see any indication that there is a chance in hell that is going to happen. We are, every one of us, hell bent on proving that "it" is not our fault. We fully accept that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, but take intellectual refugee in the firm knowledge that it is not our fault. The problem is "the other." That black guy. That white guy. That Jew. That Arab. That trans. That straight. That whatever. That other whatever. The only thing that we have in common is the firm knowledge that none of it is our fault. Our mantra is "duck your head, stay out of substantive conversations, and get on with life." If someone points out the inconvenient obvious, silence him or her any way that you can. Life is too short to worry about someone else's problems.</p><p>Bah!</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-85336799063831402882024-03-22T13:33:00.000-07:002024-03-22T13:33:10.504-07:00Thinking about war.<p> Over my lifetime, I have had occasion to think about war a lot and I have been engaged in the soft edges of war at dirt level as well as command level for a major part of my active life. I do not claim anything more than that experience, but I have come to some conclusions that I want to pass on to my friends and neighbors who have only read about war in novels and newspapers. The bottom line is that war is far worse than anything you can imagine and, because of that ignorance, we have a very strong tendency to slip into it for all manner of ridiculous, trivial reasons. A second point that I want to bring home to my readers is that war inevitably tends to breed more intense, and far wider war.</p><p>I can go on with a long list of other unfavorable results that stem from war, but the point that I am trying to make is that, in a nuclear world, we must, not should, but must, stop the progression as early in the process as possible if we are to sustain a world that is habitable by humans. As a secondary objective, we should seek to protect our economic and political position of dominance in the world to the degree possible for obvious, selfish reasons. I argue that we are, today, doing neither. </p><p>In our hearts of heart, you and I suspect that I am right, but we are unwilling to face up to the challenge that presents itself. It is apparently beyond our ability to grasp and deal with the implications that radiate out from it. The result is societal disintegration inside our country and the rise of hostile powers outside. Our vaunted democracy is crumbling around our ears and foreigners are increasingly seeing us, not as bold leaders, but rather as greedy cowards. I do not see the issue to be how much money we spend for whatever, but rather how much thought and effort we put into resolving the most important issues between people.</p><p>You and I have, all of our lives, lived in the richest country in the history of the world and we take wealth for granted. The vast majority of people living in this world exist in an entirely different situation and most of us have only read about it. It is not our fault that we are ignorant and it is not our fault that we get angry when it is pointed out that we are ignorant. We can site a carload of facts and figures to prove the extent of our education and we can recount weekend trips all over the world to prove our experience. We honestly believe that we are equipped to decide how to deal with poverty and we are willing to pay enormous amounts of money to end it. </p><p>The problem is not here. The problem is over there where the people are too ignorant to do the right thing. If they want to tear themselves apart - let 'em, we have our own problems that we need to deal with. We have to decide whether we are going to elect Biden or Trump and it is not yet clear whether either one of them will deal with the age of the fetus, the price of gasoline, the proper use of pronouns, the number of chips in the bag, or our precious feelings the way I want those world-shaking issues settled.</p><p>PS: we don't even understand that China is already whipping our ass all over the world, without going to war with us, and far too many others are taking note. Since Mao's takeover and the Korean stalemate, how many expensive foreign wars has China fought? How many unbelievably expensive wars have we fought for what advantage? During that same period of time, how much relative economic growth has happened in the two countries? How has the international prestige of the two countries faired? Which of the two has seen their economy improve and which deteriorate? At a tactical level, how many Americans see the relationship between our drug problem and China?</p><p>PPS: The single most dangerous thing about today is that you and I honestly believe that the problem might be solved by either a megalomaniac or a bigoted crook. We refuse to understand that they are but front men for you and me.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-72865183878001396482024-03-21T14:55:00.000-07:002024-03-21T15:01:00.440-07:00We are now looking for an alternative location for our drone base in West Africa..<p>Alex Thurston has an article in Responsible Statecraft today that touches on some of the same criticisms that I make of American foreign policy. He is attempting to explain why the recent American delegation to Niger failed to even meet with the leader of the coup and was, instead, told that American military were no longer welcome in that country. His theory is that we insulted the de-facto leadership of the country by sending too low ranking a delegation and further suggested that our presence in that country may not have been perceived to have been as helpful as we assumed that it was. </p><p>The American delegation was headed by Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee and AFRICOM Commander, General Michael Langley, and included other senior officials such as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Celeste Wallander. Thurston points out the assumption on our part, that an Assistant Secretary of State warranted a meeting with the Head of State was not shared by the Niger coup leaders. I go further and suggest that there was too much female in the makeup of the delegation for a macho group of military men, not yet acculturated the same way as is the American people and our Department of State.</p><p>I am certain that this insensitive comment on my part will become the primary focus for many, but it is not my principal critique of our policy in Niger. My principal criticism is of the broader policy that we have toward Africa in general and West Africa in particular. We see Niger's principal importance today as being a host for the airbase that we use to surveil and, I presume, sometimes strike radical Islamic militant groups throughout West Africa. Thurston implies that the coup group that now controls Niger may not see our military effort to be worth a damn. I again go further with my critique and conclude that our "over the horizon" mentality is not only not effective, it is actually contrary to our interests. </p><p>The simple fact of the matter is that we can not defeat Radical Islam with missiles and money. It is going to require one hell of a lot more involvement all the way down to village level, if it is to be successful, and we are clearly not willing to do that, hence the inadequacy of our diplomatic effort. Here again, my criticism is not just of the idiotic tactical mistakes made by our State Department, but more importantly the lack of awareness that dominates your and my thinking out here in the hinterland. This is a democracy. Imperfect to be sure, but still a democracy, wherein we elect people to positions in the government that is currently doing stupid things all over the world. It is not because we are bad people. It is because we are intellectually cloistered people who equate what we call education with intelligence.</p><p>I find it infinitely frustrating that evil people with common sense are screwing with us so successfully all over the planet, particularly because we are far too rapidly approaching a point where one or the other idiot will trigger a nuclear exchange. The appalling thing about the Niger debacle is that we are now looking for an alternative location for our drone base. If successful, we will buy our way into another country from which we can assassinate Radical operatives, thus ensuring continuing opportunities for radicals to advance in rank and position. Our idiotic policy will do absolutely nothing to stop the spread of Radical Islam in very large part because we don't, anywhere in the world, outside of our own non-existent borders, see what is happening at ground level. We don't even try to see what is happening and, when we get a glimpse, we hide in our devices.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-88941855785707123322024-03-20T12:46:00.000-07:002024-03-22T15:14:33.369-07:00Economic competition with China<p> According to the Mexican newspaper El Pais, Chinese companies are selling significantly more cars in Mexico than they used to and are planning to expand their production of cars in that country with an eye to selling them in the United States. Former President Trump has pledged, if reelected, to put a 100% tariff on those cars in an attempt to block their sale in this country. I am not enthusiastic about the "thinking" behind the threatened tariff because, among other reasons, it will put Washington in the position of blocking Mexico's economic development, but I definitely agree with Trump that we have to take the Chinese economic competition very seriously and equally vehemently disagree with Biden's ignoring of the challenge. </p><p>The underlying problem here, as in many other areas, is that we are unable to compete economically with China for market share. We still have an important, if shrinking, edge in technology, but labor cost, government regulation, and a slew of other factors, including excessive government spending that results in inflation, increase the cost of production in this country, not only of automobiles but virtually everything else that one can imagine. Not only that, our technological edge is being eroded as China becomes more proficient and efficient in their outreach to world markets. Those that refuse to accept Chinese technological progress as a fact of life should understand that China is on the moon and they made it on their first attempt, the only country to ever do that.</p><p>I accept protectionism as a tactic, but not as a strategy. Protectionism can obviously be useful in tactical negotiation, but, as a strategy, it puts us at odds with the rest of the world. Whether we like it or not, we have to compete economically on a level playing field, if we do not want to see our trading partners become our military adversaries. Both WOKE and MAGA political philosophies fail to encompass this economic reality - the one being overly accommodating and the other overly adversarial. I find the dichotomy between the American free enterprise myth and the reality of our day-to-day economic thinking to be fascinating. We claim to believe in free enterprise, but we neuter it domestically at every opportunity and oppose it internationally just exactly as often.</p><p>I suggest that a fundamental part of the problem is that we do not fully understand the Chinese threat because we have never seen it executed as efficiently and consistently as the Chinese Communist Party is managing to accomplish today. China poses many tactical problems, but the more formidable threat derives from the thought, discipline and tenacity that has gone into their strategy - literally over decades. I first took an interest in China, while serving in the army in Korea, a very long time ago, and I have watched their strategy be rigorously implemented over my entire lifetime. I am not saying that they have a better strategy than do we, but I am saying that they are implementing theirs better than are we, ours. The contest is authoritarianism vis-a-vis democracy and our side is presently behind, way behind, and the real problem is that you and I are sound asleep. </p><p>While we flip flop through various conflicts all over the globe, Beijing rigorously avoids wasteful conflict and concentrates on economic growth. Take Hong Kong for instance. Our concern has been the freedom of the people. China's objective was the diminution of Hong Kong as an Asian economic center while simultaneously building Shanghai as the new economic center to replace it. They did not want to wait for the treaty with Britain to expire, so they pushed reversion, fully understanding that neither London nor Washington would resist militarily. Their success has, among other things, significantly weakened, if not eliminated, Western economic influence in many third world markets. BRICS is expanding while western economic fora are shrinking in importance. Today, China is threatening to sell automobiles to us via Mexico, and Detroit and Washington are in shock. In the Middle East, China is today positioning itself to negotiate a peace between various groups that increasingly refuse to talk to us.</p><p>I am not saying that China is better than us. I am saying that they are more intelligent and more disciplined than us. They are pushing forward while we argue with each other about the age of the fetus, the number of chips in the bag, the price of gasoline, the proper use of pronouns, and our precious feelings. We don't even understand that we are already at war with China and they are advancing while we retreat. The fact that they are maneuvering economically and socially, literally all over the globe, confuses and frustrates us. We contemplate military action while they eschew it as being wasteful and ineffective. You and I choose, repeat choose to not understand what is happening. I find that inexcusable. Take fentanyl as an example. Raw materials sold to Mexican drug dealers generate money in Chinese pockets, strengthens cartel influence in Mexico, and societal disintegration in America.</p><p>Tell me again why you and I are not stupid beyond belief.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-11430046035466702222024-03-19T10:55:00.000-07:002024-03-19T11:00:16.843-07:00"Building a more resilient information environment."<p> Yesterday, Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, made a speech in Korea which he closed by saying "We can become so overwhelmed by lies and distortions – so divided from one another – that we will fail to meet the challenges that our nations face. Or we can meet this moment and do what democracies do best. We can welcome diverse voices and perspectives. We can think critically and debate vigorously. We can actually grow and self-correct." The tile of his speech was "Building a more resilient information environment" and it is the international version of speeches made by presidents and others inside this country relating to the need to "save our democracy and protect free speech." </p><p>I agree with absolutely everything that Blinken said, but note that nothing in his speech addressed a more fundamental problem, and that is the willingness and ability of humans to "grow and self-correct." Who is it that decides what is true and what not. What do we do if we do not "think critically and debate vigorously?" If we do not "actually grow and self-correct." Our Secretary of State is talking to foreigners. Who is talking to you and me?</p><p>I spent thirty years talking to foreigners, sometimes with a gun in my hand and sometimes dressed in a suit and wearing a necktie. Every single one of them, farmer and politician alike, had a different perspective about my words and every single one of them was far more interested in my actions than my jabber. I spent several years telling my Vietnamese friends about the importance of democratic values and then I walked away from them and left them to the people that I had been urging them to kill. Colleagues of mine recently did the exact same thing to Afghan friends and we are seriously considering doing it again to our Ukrainian friends. A strong probability exists in the minds of many that we will do the exact same thing to our Taiwanese friends. A Russian propagandist sums it up: "America will hump you and then dump you."</p><p>Here, inside this "bastion of democracy", free speech is venerated as an intellectual concept and vigorously denied in practice. The American government does not control speech. Corporate algorithms and individual disinterest, guided by tribal propagandists, does the job for us. As a political scientist, I find the situation fascinating. As an American, I find it disgusting as well as tragic. In today's America, you and I hide from each other's germs and ideas with equal vigor and we reduce thought to that which we find comfortable. We ignore all that does not fit into our physical and intellectual neighborhoods. Those of us living in suburbs, "distant" from urban decay, spout isms without end, but show little interest in far too many people "living" on the street, save to deplore it. We uniformly refuse to recognize that we are intellectually abandoning the concept of America and activists are championing concepts today that were once anathema. We fail to understand that our disinterest in urban blight is the exact same thing as our disinterest in the plight of far, far too many people in this shrinking world.</p><p>There is little difference, save details and scale, between crime in our cities and war in foreign countries. Both are facilitated and encouraged by our cowardly disinterest and our ability to pull imaginary, intellectual covers over our head and hide from reality in our "devices." We choose to pontificate about, rather than deal with, issues. Some of us see Russia, or China, or Iran as the threat. I see the greater danger to be our unwillingness, you and me, to admit that we see what is happening to this once near-great people. I ask myself why and conclude that the most fundamental reason is that we are cowards, too stupid to admit to what we all see happening.</p><p>Before the invention of nuclear weapons on top of satellite-guided ballistic missiles, it was eminently viable to periodically knock each other over the head with clubs and bows and arrows, or tanks and supersonic airplanes, but the nature of war has changed and we should think more about what a post nuclear conflagration would look like just down the street from where you and I live. I argue that to be more important than any of the drivel that you and I are talking about today. You can put more chips in the bag, lower the price of gasoline, snuff the fetus at any stage of development, ensure that nobody grabs anybody by the pussy, correct everybody's use of pronouns to include him and her, and ensure that nobody's feeling are bruised by any misuse of the English language, and we will still solve the population problem by making it impossible to grow anything on what is left of this chunk of rock spinning in space, unless you and I stop yelling at each other and start talking to each other substantively about very real issues.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-25173181205270557402024-03-18T09:48:00.000-07:002024-03-18T09:51:58.543-07:00Old disagreements or successful, new relationships?.<p> Aneliese Bernard, a former senior State Department official dealing in African Affairs is quoted, by PBS, as saying that "We can’t deny that our deteriorating relationships in other parts of the world: the Gulf, Israel and others, all have an influential impact on our bilateral relations in countries in West Africa.” I agree, wholeheartedly with that assessment and fully expect to see some form of the Russian Wagner Group in Niger in the not too distant future.</p><p>The American public refuses to see what is happening across the entire foreign relations spectrum. We are losing our influence in country after country, and various foreign antagonists are ineffectively, repeat ineffectively, replacing us. I fully expect the deterioration in our international position to continue and metastasize as the world falls into more and more chaos. This trajectory, combined with our own internal confusion, is extraordinarily dangerous in a world full of nuclear weapons. We must not let details continue to confuse and blind us about the sea change that is going on in the world around us, and we can not take any solace from the fact that Russia, China and Iran are no more effective than are we. The enemy is chaos, not any particular individual international player.</p><p>Neither of our two presidential aspirants, nor anyone else that I know of, for that matter, sees the situation the same way that I do. Biden is the wishy-washy one, Trump the braggadocio, but neither has the foresight to see beyond gaining the right to sit in the White House and play with the knobs and dials of the American body politic. If I am forced to choose, I will choose Trump, but I do not expect him to do anything other than, at best, postpone the continuing deterioration of our position in the world. Political stability can not be attained by ignoring the lousy living conditions and aspirations of far too many humans all over the world, including those existing in the "shit hole" countries, and in those countries currently suffering an adversarial relationship with us.</p><p>I am as nationalistic as the next American citizen, but I am also a realist. The reason Putin, Xi and the Ayatollah are threatening war with us is because we can not find a way to live together on an increasingly small chunk of space matter. We are, today, trying to win old disagreements, when we should be focused on building successful, new relationships that fit conditions in today's world. None of it is because we have the wrong individual sitting at the Resolute Desk. The individuals that we select to lead us are selected because they reflect us. In order to change the way Washington looks at our problems, we have to change you and me. If we do not do that, the inevitable, repeat inevitable, outcome is, sooner or later, nuclear war. I believe that to be stupid beyond belief.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-62409348464977975632024-03-17T14:03:00.000-07:002024-03-22T15:13:34.091-07:00Niger tells us that they don't want our military in their country any longer.<p>The Niger Junta has decided that the U.S. military presence in their country is "no longer justified." I am long out of touch with our strategy in West Africa, but it is my understanding that our airbase, just outside of Agadez, Niger, has been an important part of our grossly ineffective effort to stabilize West Africa. I presume that we operated strike as well as recon flights out of the base in some sort of "over-the-horizon" strategy against jihadist terror throughout the region. Up until the coup that brought the present military junta to power, France provided ground forces in country that I presume coordinated their equally ineffective anti-jihadist activities with us. </p><p>Because of lingering antipathy that originated long ago, during France's colonial control of West Africa, the French troops were thrown out of country immediately after the coup, but we managed to hang on for some time, because we were also providing significant economic aid to the corner stone of our West African strategy. I don't know what happened behind the scenes, but I suspect that we demanded that the former president be reinstated and the coup reversed. We have long made a very big deal about our belief that democratic Niger was the shining light in West Africa. Last December, we told the junta that we were willing to restore aid and security ties with Niger if it met "certain conditions." I think that we were just told to go screw ourselves.</p><p>I do not, repeat do not, underestimate the difficulty that we face in dealing with the challenges involved in eliminating the instability that exists, not only in West Africa, but throughout most of the world, to include our own ghettos, but I continue to believe that unless we do, we will destroy ourselves, one way or the other, but most probably in a nuclear holocaust. Were I sufficiently influential, I would mount a concerted effort to address root causes of political instability all over the planet even though all of our well-meaning efforts to do precisely this have failed in the past. Those efforts were defeated by base corruption, stupidity, and impatience, all of which we are very familiar with here at home. There is a very real possibility that large assemblages of humans are incapable of finding their way through this minefield, but I argue that we must try if we are to avoid nuclear obliteration.</p><p>As you can readily understand, I do not see either Biden or Trump to be at all interested in mounting the effort that I favor. Both men would tell me that the American people are not in the slightest interested in doing that. I completely agree, and I believe that is what is destroying our leadership outside of our non-existent borders - not the specific blunders of either politician. Inside those same non-existent borders the disease is rooted in base stupidity and intellectual cowardice. We are smart enough to understand, but are afraid to do so. We invent other problems to argue about, because the real ones are too horrifying to consider seriously. The age of the fetus, the price of gas, the number of potato chips in the bag, pronouns, and our precious feelings are safer things to argue about.</p><p>The reason that we do not produce the leadership that we need is that you and I are afraid to think about the problems that we need to address. They are too monumental for our puny minds to encompass and so we look for leadership that will address the problems that we are willing to think about. We can't vote for Trump because be brags about grabbing a woman by the pussy. We can't vote for Biden because he can't figure out where to stand when he reads his speech. We cloth our "debates" in high sounding clap trap that fools absolutely no one other than ourselves.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-5334498133977438362024-03-16T14:47:00.000-07:002024-03-16T15:02:15.974-07:00Haiti is a mess and it is different than America only in degree, not kind.<p> My guess is that if we knew enough about the situation, we would find American officials involved in the Haitian backstory. I doubt that they would have been in support of the gangs that are currently tearing the country apart, rather I would expect them to have been on the side of law and order and engaged in finding some way to prop up "the government." It does look as though we have been a principal supporter of the effort to get Kenyan police into the country to restore order in the street, and we are obviously in the forefront of "diplomatic efforts" to restore harmony in the government, but nowhere would I expect to find the kind of effort necessary to change the political trajectory in that unfortunate country, and the fundamental reason is that the American people don't give a damn, particularly since we have even bigger problems in Ukraine, Gaza, and soon in Taiwan. Who the hell has time to think about Haiti? Or Sudan? Or Burkina Faso? Or....? We have to settle on the proper age that it is suitable to snuff the fetus, get the price of gasoline down, put more potato chips in the bag, teach people how to use pronouns correctly, and, most important of all, get people to respect our feelings.</p><p>According to Google, 11.45 million people live in Haiti. Again according to Google, "on the UN's Human Development Index, Haiti ranked 170 out of 189 countries in 2020." That means that, in the entire world, there are 19 countries that are poorer than this close neighbor of ours. I know of no poor country or community in the entire world that is able to sustain a politically stable society, let alone properly care for its' citizens. Poverty results in political instability - always. Here in this country, just exactly for the same reason as in Haiti, and you and I refuse to face up to that fundamental fact.</p><p>OK, what do we do about it? The first thing we have to do is to restore order and that means using force to combat illegal activity. In Haiti that means putting the gangs down. In Chicago it means putting the gangs down. The next thing that we have to do in Haiti is make life worth living for the vast majority of people. In Chicago it means making life worth living for the vast majority of people. We actually know what needs to be done, but we refuse to do it for all manner of reasons, all of which boil down to the fact that we are not frightened enough to do the necessary, we have our own lives to live, and besides, it all costs way too much money. Always before in human history that was good enough. Eventually we would have a fight and then, after we had killed enough people, we would pick our lives back up, and get on with the effort to put more chips in the bag. Then Oppenheimer went and invented the atom bomb, Barack and Joe gave the Ayatollah permission to build theirs, and we decided that we could not address any of these issues until we decided whether we were boys or girls.</p><p>Remember to vote! We have a democracy to protect. That other guy has to be defeated even if the idiot that we are voting for is no better - remember he is different. We have another flip flop to get done. Our democracy depends on it and we are, after all, the leader of the Free World!</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-52820998135975293522024-03-15T12:44:00.000-07:002024-03-15T13:31:25.790-07:00There is no plan to evacuate American citizens from Haiti.<p> Last night, I heard a "news" snippet wherein an obviously defensive State Department spokesman told reporters that the United States had no plan to evacuate American citizens from Haiti, because American citizens have been warned for four years not to go to Haiti. My guess is that will become more of a political problem in this country than is the political and security deterioration in Haiti that is stimulating the evacuation discussion. The Biden Administration is, after all, the government that massively failed to successfully execute the evacuation of Afghanistan. I have actually directed a successful evacuation, and I agree that the Biden Administration is obviously grossly incompetent, but I do not believe that glaring fact is even close to the most important part of the situation in Haiti.</p><p>Haiti, like too much of South and Central America, is in the process of being taken over by organized criminal gangs. Democracy is failing to govern increasingly large parts of the globe for exactly the same fundamental reasons that organized and unorganized crime is becoming more important inside this country. The specifics in each instance are sufficiently dramatic that we tend to focus on the them, rather than the trend lines. Part of the reason that we do that is that we are afraid to think about the trend lines that are emerging and, when we do, we reject the actions necessary to deal with them. I argue that mistake is going to get us, you and me, killed.</p><p>Haiti is happening, to varying degrees, all over the globe, including here in this country. There is a difference in the degree of deterioration in civil order inside our cities as compared to Port-au-Prince today, but the difference is in degree, not in kind. Were we to compare cities governed by democratic authorities with cities governed by totalitarian authorities, we would see generally more order in the latter, than in the former. (BeiJing vs San Francisco.) Wealthy countries in Europe and North America are able to gloss over "urban blight," and throw money at it, while, here in this country, the governing class moves out of urban areas to suburban enclaves, the most elite of which actually have walls. There is not enough wealth and organization in poorer countries to accomplish this on a sufficiently large scale to mask the underlying problem - hence "Bar-B-Cue's" rise to power.</p><p>As Haiti goes down the drain, we increasingly worry about refugees flooding into this country and seek temporary solutions such as trying to hire Kenyan cops to restore order to the afflicted nation and arguing with each other about putting security forces on alert to stop foreigners from flooding into this country. As our government fails to take the necessary actions that would get our citizens out of Haiti, we will see private operations organized to deal with the challenge. These efforts will be dramatic enough to capture our attention instead of thinking about the fundamentals that made all of this happen. Eventually, we will see sufficient order restored by one, or the other power broker, that we can turn our attention away from this problem and focus it on another, somewhere else. </p><p>As we go forward, we will ignore the fact that we have failed to address the underlying issues. Why am I so certain of the outcome? Because we do it over and over again, absolutely everywhere in the world, including here inside our own country. Just as we physically flee urban blight here in this country, we intellectually flee it everywhere in the world. I contend that population growth is swamping humanity, intellectually as well as physically. I contend that the only, repeat only, solution is to honestly address the living conditions of everybody in this increasingly crowded world, not because it is the right thing to do morally, but because it is the only way that the human experiment can continue. Not to do so is to see Haiti, Ukraine, Gaza, Taiwan as being the proximate steps leading to nuclear oblivion.</p><p>In the last analysis, Make America Great Again is just as narrow minded as Open Borders and "leaders" are not the problem. You and I are, and we refuse to understand it because we are greedy cowards. Things are a mess, that much we well understand, but we choose to carefully select what we argue about. Pronouns, the age of the fetus, the price of gas, the number of chips in the bag, and our precious feelings being the current list, because we can get our feeble heads around them - not because they are the most dangerous problems facing us. I continue to see that situation as being the height of stupidity. I contend that you and I are just as stupid as the "leaders" that we elect. They are, in fact, our report card.</p><div><br /></div>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-24483840551944305722024-03-14T12:53:00.000-07:002024-03-16T15:40:39.647-07:00Why do I think differently than many of my peers?<p> A friend asked me why I was so opposed to socialism and still supported free enterprise and self-reliance. There are a multitude of reasons, but they come down to which system better protects individual freedom. There is, of course, a price that the individual pays for that freedom and a lot of people are obviously unwilling to accept the responsibility associated with it. I ask myself why I think the way that I do and others think differently and conclude that it all starts with family and is refined and reinforced by life experience. My fellow citizen in today's America has had a much different life experience and I suggest that accounts for my being out of step with my society. Given the way in which people are being conditioned today, I see little chance that my way of looking at life's challenges will prevail.</p><p>I was fortunate to have been born into a strong family, but I was not a good student in either grammar or high school, and I did poorly in my first two years in college. My Navy veteran father and John Wayne's movies obviously influenced me and I voluntarily gave up a college exemption from the draft and enlisted in the army during the height of the Korean War, because I saw it as my duty to country. Korea was a seminal moment in my life and, ironically, my two mediocre years of college almost certainly saved my life. The army mistakenly thought that I might be intelligent and refused to let me join the paratroops insisting instead that I learn how to speak Chinese. Had I been deployed to Korea at the time, the odds were high that I would not have lived through the experience and my assignment to military intelligence added a certain cachet to my developing resume. While in Korea, I woke up to the horror of war, turned down a commission in the army, and naively decided to devote myself to making peace in the world. I set out to become a diplomat, because soldiers fight wars and diplomats make peace. (My disillusion with that oversimplification came much later in life.)</p><p>For thirty years of my life I learned about, thought about, and tried to influence foreign populations in a wide variety of different stages of social and economic development. I learned how to speak varying degrees of several foreign languages, lived in underdeveloped countries, developed friendships with people who were very different than myself and dealt with varying types of conflict from village level combat in Viet Nam, through subversive activity at village level in Thailand, to the potentially nuclear struggle with the Soviet Union. Along the way, I played a small part in negotiating the reversion of Okinawa to Japanese control. I directed our counter-insurgency effort at village level, managed the lives of thousands of people living in refugee centers at home and abroad and, in all of it, I had an opportunity to see American and foreign leaders at all levels from village headmen to foreign monarchs and American presidents. I met dictators and democratically elected presidents. I do not claim intelligence, but I do claim experience, and I conclude that today's America is on the wrong domestic and international track. Very unfortunately, I also conclude that I can not do anything about it. My fellow citizens, conservative and liberal alike, know more about all of it than do I and they conclude that I "live in Lala Land." They are hell bent on destroying us and I can not find a way to wake them up.</p><p>I see a fundamental need for more self-reliance, individual responsibility, and realism on the part of all Americans from national leaders down to individual citizens. That view informs my political stance on the issues that are before us and accounts for the difference between my own and my fellow Americans' political views. I just plain do not have that much confidence in "government,"particularly one elected, and staffed, by people who have not been outside of their own backyard, intellectually and physically, and do not think things through.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-90763313429398400172024-03-13T08:25:00.000-07:002024-03-17T14:14:21.025-07:00Social Media's Role in Our Lives.<p>President Biden is said to be using Tik Tok to support his presidential campaign and Donald Trump argues that Facebook is the enemy of the people. I think that Biden is being practical and Trump is correct. Having said that, I believe that the principal problem is not social media itself, but instead, a flaw in the human psyche, akin to its' appetite for drugs. Social media channels like Tik Tok and Facebook are but enablers as is crack and fentanyl. Humans are intellectually cowardly and lazy and drugs are mistakenly thought to be a solution.</p><p>I do not blame Biden for using Tik Tok to reach young Americans, just as I do not blame Trump for using Truth Social to reach his base. Both politicians are dealing with the world as it exists and would be remiss if they failed to do so. The people that I "blame" are you and me. Our use of narcotics, and that definitely includes both fentanyl and social media, is destroying us. Americans, in particular, are prone to seek escape from reality because we are ignorant, pampered, intellectual cowards, but the fundamentals are born into all humans.</p><p>As I look at social media, I ask myself what it is about it that is so addictive and I conclude that it is the algorithm that learns what we want to be served, provides that, and then adds in its message primarily by curating content. Control the algorithm and you control thought, or at least what passes for thought. I was alive when the internet was born and social media invented. I wrote code in the simplistic early days and could manipulate search engines like Alta Vista with "meta tags." My involvement faded rapidly as "code" became more obtuse, and I failed to see what was happening, because my interests were elsewhere.</p><p>In the early days of social media, I actually advised my clients not to waste time or money on it as its' content was infantile and nobody of substance would waste their time on it. One day, one of my clients informed me that she was losing one of her clients because a competitor of mine offered her a presence on Facebook. I remember saying that I would put her business on Facebook, even though it would do no real good. I did that and within an extraordinarily short period of time learned how wrong I had been. Cutting to the chase, I now consider social media to be a, if not the, principal way Americans communicate.</p><p>The social media guru's mantra is that your message must be short on words and long on imagery, because the human attention span is impossibly short and you are a click away from obscurity if you do not instantly grab your viewer's attention visually. My own experience in social media is a bit more nuanced that this, but I agree that it is the common perception and does indeed govern social media today. The amazing part of the whole thing is that you can tell so much about a person by looking at his or her social media presence, to include not only the content of the pages that they control, but also the content being served to those pages. I am tempted to make the argument that, in many cases, the algorithm knows the person better than the person does himself or herself.</p><p>All of that is history and it is bad enough, but we are now at the stage of the game where the algorithm is actually grooming the human. That is definitely Orwellian and, I argue, contrary to humanity's fundamental interests. Tik Tok is front and center for a lot of reasons related to it's effectiveness and it's Chinese ownership, but all of social media is doing the same things that Tik Tok does, the only difference being the intent of the people that develop and maintain the algorithm and their sophistication.</p><p>Most social media algorithms are controlled by liberal leaning individuals, but conservative and renegade individuals are awakening to the opportunities presented and nations are beginning to get into the act - China at the forefront, but Russia and Iran are not far behind, if less sophisticated. My own concern relates to the cumulative impact, rather than the partisan effect, of social media and its' algorithms. What is happening is that we are arguing about who controls the algorithm, not the fundamental change that is happening in the way in which we relate to one another.</p><p>It is important to note that I choose to write this blasphemy on a blog, not on a social media platform. The reason is that the social media algorithm will literally not permit me to spread this blasphemy on any of the channels that it controls. I fully expect the blog loophole to be closed at some point in the future. The underlying enemy of humanity being the computer.</p><p><br /></p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-59648076488984576402024-03-12T11:35:00.000-07:002024-03-12T11:41:16.345-07:00The importance of societal unity.<p> The single most dangerous threat to our future is the deterioration of our societal unity. Without societal unity we can not resolve any of the specific political issues that are front and center. The America that I was born into was much different than the one that I live in today. There was friction between different groups, but we were trying to eliminate it. The American melting pot sought to eliminate ethnic differences and "dial two for Spanish" did not exist. Sink or swim, a newcomer to America had to adapt to the dominant mongrel culture. Today, we seek to elevate our ethnic differences and champion diversity. Diversity in every form possible to imagine, including gender. A Democrat sees every single issue and the political landscape differently than does his/her/its Republican neighbor because he, or she, or it, is a Democrat, not because of any real substantive difference. Republicans do precisely the same thing for the same inane "reason."</p><p>At the same time, we increasingly isolate ourselves from what is happening at ground level throughout the rest of the world. One of the things that worries me the most is that humans are perfecting weapon technology faster than our societal structures are capable of dealing with it. Always before, humans fell into conflict, killed, wounded and destroyed much, but eventually one side or the other prevailed. Because of "advances" in technology, each of the conflicts grew in intensity and reach, but all eventually ended with one side dominant. During my lifetime, the seminal conflict was Word War II and America emerged as the dominant leader of the entire world, but was increasingly challenged by the Soviet Union. I was a small part of the defeat of the Soviet challenge to our leadership and stupidly thought that the international threat to America had been eliminated and we could all get on with our "normal" lives. </p><p>Meanwhile the art of war has morphed away from industrial conflict, where airplanes, tanks and artillery dominated land battles between huge groups of humans, toward nuclear war, where huge numbers of nuclear tipped ballistic missiles will be fired from underground silos at urban centers half way around the world and cyber war will take out electrical grids and the cyber underpinnings of civilization in the enemy nation. Satellites have become more important than seaports and railroads. Meanwhile, we, here in America, have become complacent about what is going on in the rest of the world, focusing instead on our own precious navel. We worry about the danger to our democracy, while refusing to participate in it intelligently. Our tribal differences dominate what passes for thought throughout the nation and we worry about "issues" that we can understand - the age of the fetus, the proper use of pronouns, the price of gasoline, the number of chips in the bag, and our precious feelings. Crooks and charlatans "lead" us and we put up with it because we are too busy minding our own business. Our "understanding" of the world around us is derived from our television sets and our phones. We are purposely ignorant of the world that we live in and think that we can build a fence that will protect us from what is happening outside of our non-existent borders. We are stupid beyond belief and arrogant enough to honestly believe that we are not.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-25840455355264793562024-03-11T10:08:00.000-07:002024-03-11T10:09:15.490-07:00Ukraine and the November Election<p> The Polish Foreign Minister, in a speech at the United Nations, said that NATO military personnel were already present in Ukraine. Comments out of Russia indicate that they knew it all along. This follows on French President Macron's suggestion that NATO troops should be deployed to Ukraine. President Biden has made it known that he continues to reject this possibility.</p><p>I have absolutely no way of knowing whether there are any NATO military personnel inside Ukraine today, but it is a discussion about very little of substance. NATO is already providing manpower and brains in every aspect of the fighting except manpower on the front lines, and Moscow knows it. Given today's communication capabilities it matters little where the intelligence or logistics officer sits. The reason troops on the ground is rising to new levels of interest now, is because Ukraine is running out of soldiers, and Moscow's strategy is one of attrition. </p><p>Back at the start of this stupidity, I argued that we should have told Moscow and Kiev to negotiate their way out of the looming conflict or we would force them to do so by cutting off aid to Ukraine and/or join in the defense of Ukraine with our own military, depending on which side was the recalcitrant. I continue to believe that policy would have resulted in a negotiated solution to the stupidity, but I do not believe that it is today anything other than a prelude to World War III. The problem being that Moscow has invested too much treasure and prestige in the effort and it believes that the Western World is tiring of the struggle and the cost of everything associated with it.</p><p>Today, Moscow sees an America divided at home and involved unsuccessfully in numerous foreign conflicts all over the globe - Gaza and Ukraine being the two most bothersome right now, but several others looming on the horizon, with Taiwan being in the forefront. An important part of Moscow's decision-making process revolves around Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Joe Biden gave Moscow Crimea and consciously refused to provide Kiev with the support necessary to change the situation for the better on the ground. Donald Trump is a more difficult potential leader to analyze. I am convinced that Putin is delighted with Biden and actually fears Trump, because he is unpredictable.</p><p>Because it has the potential to lead to nuclear war, I believe that Ukraine is one of the more important issues in our 2024 presidential election and I much prefer Trump to Biden as the decision-maker dealing with it, even though I do not like either of these two politicians personalities and I believe that Trump will make decisions vis-a-vis Ukraine that are contrary to our long term interests. If that is so, why do I support him over Biden? Because I am convinced that Biden's decisions are far more likely to lead to nuclear war - either with Moscow or Beijing, or, more probably Teheran. We have got to get past WWIII if we are to be able to go on and address the systemic problems that lead to these types of situations. </p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-83620674660781794492024-03-10T11:39:00.000-07:002024-03-10T12:21:27.592-07:00Violence as a "solution" is proliferating dangerously.<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Mexican cartels are now using drones and improvised land mines in their fight with the Mexican Government and each other. New York City has deployed uniformed National Guard troops to keep order in its’ subways. Press reports about these and similar developments do not relate the events to each other. Our consideration of each is siloed as unrelated events in physical locations distant from one another. None are related to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza nor the civil war currently destroying Sudan, nor the gang takeover of Haiti, nor the village level war ongoing thoughout North Africa, nor the continuing war in Syria between a half dozen ethnic factions, nor the pushing and shoving in the South China Sea. I contend that all of these breakdowns of societal norms are related to one another and we should take note. Whether we like it or not, violence is on the rise throughout the world as an acceptable way to settle grievances and advance interests. Gun violence in Oakland is, at root, exactly the same as gun violence in Burkina Faso and both are inconsistent with the continued viability of the human experiment.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Violence has long been in the human tool box, but “technological advances” have provided angry people with new tools that kill people more effectively. I admit that I see advanced technology as being, on balance, a very bad thing for humans, but I also understand that the majority of my fellow humans see it differently. It makes little difference, because technology is here to stay, as is the potential for its use in “settling” disputes and controlling societies. Here in the United States, we argue about gun ownership, but refuse to address what I consider to be the root cause of all of this violence all around the entire world - inadequate human relationships. Humans have been stupidly killing each other since well before guns were invented. Violence is not the child of a gun. It is something that happens inside our head and technology provides ways to expand its impact on more and more fellow human beings. </p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What to do about the problem? Technology is not going away, nor is it going to be limited to peaceful uses. The gun, the mine, the nuclear weapon are, however, the wrong targets for our attention. What we must effect, in our search for a better world, let alone continued existence, is the human mind. Because the task is so huge, I oversimplify to make my point - we must do two things. First, be so strong that no one can contest our policies, and second, we have to sincerely, repeat sincerely, seek to improve the lives of everyone on earth. There is a very real possibility that humans en masse can not do that, but it remains the challenge that faces us and I am arguing that we should try. It is inexcusable that even here in this country we have far too many people existing on the street. Physical and intellectual flight to the suburbs is not a viable longterm answer folks.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">At street level, we don’t need the National Guard searching purses. We desperately need a criminal court system combined with an effective police force that punishes subway criminals rather than civilian heroes. At the national level, we need a clearly dominant military and a group of old fashioned statesmen, allied with an honest, intelligent business community. At the community level, we need a populace that understands the challenge facing us. I believe that we are failing all though this hierarchy of challenge, but the most fundamental is the failure of Americans to even begin to understand the problem facing us, even though our continued existence is at stake. I remain convinced that we can do the necessary if we but wake up to the reality of the challenge facing us.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The age of the fetus, the proper use of pronouns, the price of gasoline, the number of chips in the bag, and our precious feelings are just plain not the problem folks. The growing relevance of nuclear holocaust is more proximate than you and I are willing to acknowledge and it is long past time to come together and address root problems rather than superficial niceties and uglities. Moscow is the easy problem. Beijing, a bit more difficult. Radical Islam, much harder. Population/resource balance, the hardest of all. We must quit defining our challenge so as to match our inadequate response. The number of potato chips in the bag is not as important as the fact that the bag has too long been empty in far too many places on this planet. A society that willingly accepts smash and grab in their cities understandably accepts smash and grab on the international scene. A society that accepts gun violence in its’ ghettos understandably accepts it in “shit hole countries.”</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Quit cowering in the corner like a worthless little pile of fecal matter and stand the hell up. Your and my life depends on it.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-22031949220420606522024-03-09T09:36:00.000-08:002024-03-09T09:38:41.287-08:00Humans are attracted to others that are like-minded.<p> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;">Humans are attracted to others that are like-minded.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;">Each of us are possessed by a range of emotion and belief that finds similarity and difference in the emotions and beliefs of others.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;">Our associations are governed by this range of similarities and differences.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;">The closer the variables are to our core, the stronger the attractiveness of the individual and the ideas espoused.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;">Because they are so fundamental, cultural similarities and differences play an outsized role.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;">The result is tribal organization - both acknowledged and unacknowledged.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;">The model for tribal organization is the family.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;">In today’s America, political parties have devolved into tribal organizations and self-identified members of each of our parties think and act as family members, wherein loyalty to family is a paramount consideration. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px;"> </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A relatively long list of “issues” emerges and tribal members adopt identical positions on each of them according to what tribal elders determine to be truth. Few are the individuals that “think for themselves,” and rarely are they influential among large numbers of people, particularly when they question tribal “truths.” The only force that can overcome this intellectual lethargy is fear. When the real world situation gets bad enough, rational thought begins to emerge, and depending on the degree and longevity of the threat, rational thought begins to take precedent over tribal lore. This process has characterized human history since we stood up on two legs, and humanity has managed to adapt and survive. The problem today, is that we have invented weaponry and delivery systems that can not only kill vast numbers of us, but can also poison the very land that we need to sustain human life.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Thinning the herd” is a practical answer to over population as long as you are not among those that are “thinned,” and your plot of land is not part of that which is made radio-active. I suggest that you and I do not have any hope in hell that we will not be a principal target in the exchange of nuclear weapons and although that would be ironic, in that we invented the damned things, I do not find it to be an attractive prospect. I would prefer to find a way to convince others in this world to live and let live. I am convinced that, paradoxically, the key to doing that is possessing overwhelming military strength, the demonstrable will to use that strength, combined with an honest desire and effective programs to better the lives of all humans living on earth. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My pessimism about the future derives from the failure of our tribes to adopt policies attuned to these objectives, because we are not yet scared enough to do it and we are running out of the time necessary to do it. Instead, we argue among ourselves about the age of the fetus, proper use of pronouns, the price of gasoline, the number of potato chips in the bag, and our precious feelings. Very nice people, physical and intellectual cowards all, steeped in facts and figures, but without the fundamental intelligence necessary to come together and save ourselves.</p>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-76763600273981420732024-03-09T09:22:00.000-08:002024-03-09T09:24:53.897-08:00European view of US defense policy.<p> Europe is rethinking its reliance on the United States as regards defense policy. I am way out of date on the subject and only have inadequate news snippets to go on, but world events would seem to make it inevitable that Europeans would increasingly doubt American resolve to fight and die in the defense of Europe. We turned tail and ran from Afghanistan just the other day and we did not even tell our European allies that were in Afghanistan with us that we were abandoning both our Afghan "allies" and them to the Taliban. Very comfortable American civilians, too busy to think about far off dirty hell holes, may not see much of importance in the matter, but I guarantee that you would if your ass was in the fox hole.</p><p><br /></p><p>And then there is the ongoing stupidity in Ukraine where Europeans clearly see America's policy as being to hide behind Ukrainian surrogates to deal with Russian aggression and, because that policy is getting to be "too expensive," and is going nowhere useful, America is seriously considering abandoning Ukraine. (The vast majority of Europeans will refuse to acknowledge the wisdom of using Ukraine as a lever to deal with US border policy.) Donald Trump is presumably delighted by the European angst that is evident, but sees the numbers being discussed in the European debate on defense spending as being inadequate. Were the world still engaged in the struggle against the Soviets, I would agree with him, but the world has changed and the out-dated Cold War strategy is no longer adequate to deal with the challenge. I over simplify, but NATO was a useful tool when future war was to be industrial in nature. It is not any longer. In the current world, industrial war with one or another major antagonist is but prelude to nuclear war, and we refuse to understand that simple fact of life and death.</p><p><br /></p><p>All of the hoopla in the newspapers is focused on inadequate supplies of artillery shells, but the real issue is that Ukraine and Russia are literally running out of soldiers. Think about who is being killed in both Russia and Ukraine - the casualties are robbing both countries of the very generation that would be necessary to build a different future. The whole mess staggers the imagination, if we but had some imagination, but we don't. We are willfully blind, very nice, stinking cowards, stuck in antiquated slogans and it is going to get you and me killed. We do not have the balls nor the wisdom necessary to step up to the plate and tell the rest of the world to stop with the killing. Not only that, we actually encourage far too much of it and then hide our heads in our hands when the going gets tough.</p><p><br /></p><p>If a deity did create us, he, she, or it has obviously decided to get rid of his, her or its' mistake. Kenya is the only country in the entire world that is worried about Haiti? I ask you, the American citizen that is a responsible citizen in a democracy what you think about our policy in Burkina Faso, or Myanmar, or Nicaragua? All I hear is prattle about soap operas, where in an orange haired playboy grabs a woman by the pussy, and says stupid things about other politicians that shower with their daughters and sniff little girls' hair. Geez, people wake the hell up! Go ahead and change the sign on the bathroom door, snuff the fetus, put more potato chips in the bag, and for heaven's sake don't stress anyone's feelings, but when you have finished correcting the mistakes of our ancestors, please devote a little of your time to keeping us, you and me, alive.</p><div><br /></div>Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-9755954851506060482019-01-10T08:30:00.004-08:002019-01-10T08:30:59.499-08:00Withdrawal of US Military from Syria<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
My earlier guess that Presidents Trump and Erdogan had discussed Syria on the telephone appears to have been correct and, based on that conversation, President Trump later announced that the United States would pull all of its military out of Syria. Erdogan recently said as much and indicated that the call had been held in December of last year. Trump sent Bolton to Ankara to work out the details of the withdrawal. Before meeting with Erdogan, Bolton made several public statements to the effect that there was no time table for the withdrawal and that it was contiditional on Ankara’s commitment not to harm the Kurdish fighters that were allied with the USG in the fight against ISIS. Erdogan reiterated his belief that the YPG is a terrorist organization and refused to meet with Bolton saying that he would prefer to discuss the matter with Trump in another telephone call.</div>
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My earlier post on this subject outlines the basic situation between Kurd and Turk and explains why Erdogan is taking a hard line against the Kurds - particularly the YPG. I will not go over that ground again here. Instead, I am going to go out on a limb and try to understand what is motivating our President. I believe that his fundamental objective is to remove us from the mess in Syria. I take him at his word that he does not want to engage in nation building and believes that it is high time for others in the international community to step up and take a share of the responsibility for ensuring order in world affairs. I doubt that he wants to harm those that have helped us diminish ISIS, but he sees it as his duty to look out for American interests first. Syria costs too much in blood and treasure, so he is determined to get us out. He sees Erdogan’s eagerness to expand Turkish involvement in Syria as a useful way to accomplish his objective. </div>
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President Trump’s eagerness to get our troops out of Syria is generating a considerable backlash. I doubt that there are any supporters for this course of action among those who have been involved on the ground, nor do any of our allies in the region agree with it. On the other hand, Ankara, Teheran, Damascus and Moscow are, for a variety of different reasons, delighted. My guess continues to be that Erdogan and Trump will eventually work out acceptable wording for the joint public declaration that will permit Washington to pull our forces out. I am also skeptical that Ankara will abide by the spirit of that declaration. The expansion of Turkish presence inside Syria is designed to weaken the Kurdish subversive campaign inside Eastern Turkey and to block any additional migration of population out of Syria into Turkey. A secondary objective is to protect and preserve the anti-Assad groups that are currently holed up in Idlib Province. Although Ankara is opposed to ISIS, I doubt that their pursuit of ISIS remnants will be as effective as we would like. Down the road a very short distance, Ankara and Damascus will have problems with the manipulation of ethnicity that is accompanying Ankara’s occupation of Syrian land.</div>
Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-19954927773505980712019-01-07T18:41:00.002-08:002019-01-07T18:41:09.372-08:00Bird Photography<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
How long a telephoto lens does the average photographer need? In order to answer this kind of question, one obviously needs to know what an average photographer is. I suggest that there are no average photographers. There are a multitude of different kinds of photographers to include you and me. Each one of us is different and each one of us have different equipment needs. My own are simple, if expensive. I have used Canon still cameras for decades and see no reason to change. I am currently using the 5D, Mark IV. The lens that I currently use the most is a Sigma 24 - 70 mm, but I also own several other lenses to include a Canon 400 mm. For my purposes, the 400 mm is as long as I need, and I need it only for animal and bird photography. Given the high ISO that is currently available, I can hand hold the 400 mm in good daylight. Anything longer than 400 mm, I have to use a tripod and I find that to be a serious limitation because I do not do a lot of shooting from a fixed position and I enjoy capturing my subjects in motion.</div>
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My advice to anyone wanting to break into bird photography is to at least start out with the 400 mm and mount it on a decent camera body that gives you a strong image file to work with in Lightroom. Then learn how to best approach your subject. Stealth. Negative eye contact. Angle of approach. Speed of approach. Silence. Smoothness of movement. Knowledge of specie habits. Knowledge of terrain. Apparel. Etc, etc, etc… All worth as much or more than additional millimeters in your lens. If the birds that you are hunting live near you and you can visit them often you have the opportunity to learn their individual habits. That should eventually put you exactly where you need to be to get the picture that you seek. I have, for instance, the standard osprey carrying fish picture. I had watched that pair of birds for several weeks and knew exactly where their fishing grounds were and where their nest was. I knew that they were feeding young. So, each morning I went to the beach (Walk On) and waited for them to appear. Once I saw where they were fishing I moved to a point on high ground between them and their nest. They were excellent fishermen. I only had to wait a half hour or so before one of them was flying not very high over my head carrying a fish. I have the same picture done exactly the same way at the Mouth of the Rogue River in Oregon. My point being that knowledge of your subject is as important as hardware, if not more important.</div>
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Where you hunt birds is also important. Needless to say, you should be an expert on every single kind of bird in the immediate vicinity of your home, but the more birds there are the better your chances of a decent image for obvious reasons. We are fortunate here in California because there are a number of very important bird refuges located up and down the state and they are protected by some very knowledgeable people. Take a couple of days off. Drive to one of them and set up housekeeping in an inexpensive motel. Eat hamburgers. Meet the people that run the refuge. Pick their brains. Most of them enjoy telling you what they know and they know a lot. Spend your entire time - sunrise to sunset - driving endlessly around the refuge photographing what you see. Do not get out of the car. Birds are used to the car and fearful of the person separate from the vehicle. (The same is true in the game parks in Africa when you decide to go hunting lions and giraffes.) Learn how to shoot out of the open window on the passenger’s side as well as the driver’s side. Before you go home, figure out when the migrations effect the various refuges so that you can better plan your next visit. Here again, the people at the refuge can be extremely valuable.</div>
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One last suggestion. Join the local Christmas bird count (which frequently does not happen on Christmas). Get to know the birders in your community. They may be more interested in the birds for reasons other than photography, but they have the knowledge that you need about the species in your neighborhood and they are willing to share that knowledge with others that are interested in birds. If you are very lucky, the bird count, might actually provide a couple of very nice images. Certainly it will introduce you to some very interesting people. </div>
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P.S: The local count here is 1/12/19 Count day: Saturday January 12, 2018</div>
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(Note: SEVERE weather would move the count to Sunday, January 13) They are looking for volunteers to join in. Contact is Diane Hichwa. Email is dhichwa@earthlink.net.</div>
Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-26680025300654970632019-01-07T09:13:00.000-08:002019-01-07T09:13:08.408-08:00<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
I find it interesting that it is Bolton that appears to be tasked with ensuring that our withdrawal from Syria goes as smoothly as possible. It is a daunting task and I wish him well. In my opinion, Ankara is right to worry about the Syrian Kurds, particularly the YPG. No matter what anybody does or says, I am utterly convinced that they will continue to support their brothers and sisters inside Eastern Turkey and they will continue to work toward autonomy and eventual independence both inside Syria and inside Turkey. There is a very active, very serious Kurdish insurgency going on inside Turkey and communication between Syrian and Turkish Kurds is ongoing. I don’t know what the toll has been in human lives, but Aljazeera believes it to be in the neighborhood of 40,000. I understand Turkish President Erdogan’s concern and believe that from his perspective, he has little choice to do other than what he is doing in creating the buffer zone between a very well armed YPG and his country. I also understand his frustration with Washington as he has watched us train, arm and advise fighters that he believes will soon turn against him.</div>
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On the other side of the same coin, I sympathize with the Kurdish people’s desire for a country of their own and admire the effectiveness of their cooperation with us in our campaign against ISIS. They carried the ground war, suffered the major casualties, and were a critical element in achieving the degree of success that we have had in reducing the territory held by the rogue caliphate. I agree with their analysis that they were staunch allies in our time of need and we are now abandoning them. It makes little difference that both they and we saw ISIS as a major threat that had to be eliminated. Bolton is charged with the task of ensuring that Ankara does not take advantage of the situation to pursue its’ objective of destroying what it sees as allies of the Kurdish insurgency just across the border. Ironically, the hated Assad is being asked to play a positive role in ensuring this outcome. Syrian ground forces are already occupying positions between Turk and Kurd in the Manbij region. The Kurds were wise enough to keep a channel of communication open with Damascus all during the civil war and managed to keep Assad off of their backs even before the United States became involved in the situation. My guess is that we are currently encouraging a Kurdish rapprochement with the Assad regime. Because Assad hates Erdogan there is almost certainly room for Bolton to maneuver.</div>
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I do not know what will happen, but I believe that the odds are that Trump will continue with the withdrawal of US forces from Syria and that we will agree to provide the logistic support that Turkey will need to replace us. In the short term, I believe that the odds are that Ankara will resist any overt moves against the Kurds and the Kurds will avoid provoking the Turks unnecessarily. Should that not be the case it will almost certainly be because somebody on the ground made an error. Washington, Ankara, Damascus, Moscow and Teheran appear to all be on the same page at the present time and the Kurds are playing the only hand they have - Damascus. I would imagine that their internal debate is rather intense at the present time, but they have little support from Kurds elsewhere in the region with exception of those battling Ankara inside Turkey. Internal politics within the greater Kurdish community is badly divided between a multiplicity of factions that are seriously at each other’s throats.</div>
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From our point of view, leaving morality aside, the withdrawal of US forces from Syria opens the door a bit wider to Teheran to further strengthen its’ position vis-a-vis Israel. I presume that President Trump is counting on his attempt to strangle Teheran economically to be the principal defense of Israel, but I would not be surprised if we found out that Moscow was also urging Teheran to proceed slowly in pursuing this objective. Moscow’s immediate objective is to get Washington out of Syria. The destruction of Israel is not an important Russian objective. Although their motivations are very different, both Putin and Trump are in agreement on this point. I presume that Trump is telling all and sundry that if anyone tries to attack Israel, the United States will respond with massive force. I also presume that Jerusalem is most unhappy with the way things are developing inside Syria and in Washington. Jerusalem almost certainly sees the Syrian playing board shifting in Teheran’s favor and the economic boycott of Iran failing to achieve results fast enough to ensure Israel’s security. President Trump's uncertain political future also plays into the situation.</div>
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Although it is not the principal concern, the future of ISIS is also in question and that has potential implications for our own domestic political situation here inside the bubble. There is no question but that President Trump has defeated ISIS. There is also no question but that ISIS has not been destroyed. Estimates run into the tens of thousands of ISIS fighters still running around in the area and returning to their original homelands. I very much doubt that Ankara will pursue these fighters as vigorously as we would like. If the ISIS remnants are wise enough not to provoke Ankara, the Turkish military will not pursue them aggressively. They will return to the shadows to await reemergence at some future date when their stars realign. We should understand that President Erdogan is willing to work with an Islamist political spectrum that is much wider than our own. President Trump’s belief that the maintenance of a US military presence in Iraq will permit us to strike a resurgent ISIS is almost certainly an attempt to pacify his critics inside the beltway. No one is asking who the surrogate ground force would be in such an effort. Presumably not the Kurds.</div>
Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713696311172401112.post-35767110906510376192019-01-06T09:21:00.001-08:002019-01-06T09:21:18.656-08:00<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">A lot of my friends believe that I am unduly patient with our President. I disagree, probably, in part, at least, because i spent thirty years in government service. During that time, I had a variety of superior officers in my life. In each of those phases of my career, I tried my very best to help make our efforts successful. In some cases it required me to argue with my superiors. Some arguments I won and some I lost. I never saw any advantage in trying to destroy those with whom I disagreed. The better course of action was to help them find a better way forward. I see society’s responsibility vis-a-vis a duly elected president to be similar. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For one element of society to try to destroy a president is to set themselves against those that elected that president and that is guaranteed to destroy not just the president but the society as well. In my humble opinion, we, here in the United States, are doing precisely that. We are not arguing about policies, we are hating an individual without reference to policies. In my opinion, this president and his predecessors have gotten some things exactly right and some things very wrong. Were we to address those policies in a meaningful way, we would be strengthening our nation. By ignoring policies and concentrating on emotion we, not our particular president of the moment, are taking a wonderful country directly into a very deep cesspool. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Tell me again why I should not think us to be stupid beyond belief.</span></div>
Cristalenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06716651900870772935noreply@blogger.com0