The Marines will field an anti-drone air defense system. I'm not terribly confident that ground-based systems will be able to defend against future networked massed drone attacks.
Do people still blame jihadi anger at the West on the Crusades? That's just stupid and completely ignores that the Crusades were defensible as "just war." Remember that the Crusaders liberated the Holy Land territory from Islamic conquest. It was not in any way colonialism.Or do you also want to argue that much of the Balkans, Spain, and Portugal are rightfully Islamic territory, and cause for hate?
Representative AOC said the world would (eventually) end if we didn't act to stop global warming in the next 12 years. Which is tremendous progress when you consider that in 1989 we had only 11 years. Woo hoo! We gained an entire year to act! I wonder what the deadline will be in another 30 years?
Hopefully the prosecutions in the college admissions scandal nip this corruption in the bud. I actually have nor problem with people with money tilting the playing field legally. That seems normal. Of course you do what you can for your child within the rules the colleges set up. I blame the colleges that want "well rounded" applicants. Strangely it seems that activities that cost a lot of money are what "round" you. Colleges should have simpler conditions for admission that level the field more than it is now. Rule of law is undermined with complicated rules that benefit those who can afford to game the complicated system.
Colleges apparently don't like scrutiny about Confucius Institutes, the Chinese propaganda arms set up in Western universities. You'd think these would be shunned as easily as Aryan Institutes would be. If they existed.
I often advise checking the definitions section in a debate. For example if you hear "the rich" will pay for some program you may be horrified to find you are considered "rich." And sometimes the definitions section is itself corrupted. Tip to Instapundit.
Algeria's political future remains uncertain with discontent bubbling to the surface.
It's official, the Russia collusion nonsense is over. Democrats rediscovered the homeless issue. Usually that disappears when a Democrat is in the White House only to become a soul-damning crisis of government compassion when a Republican is president. But I guess the Russia obsession crowded out that transition until now.
The media would not suppress distressing news about a Republican before an election the way it did for Mr. Jazz Hands.
The Army will build up stocks of ammunition. Good. War doesn't stop when ammo runs low--it just gets more bloody for us and not the enemy, risking our defeat in the process. The problem was very real and the result of failure to maintain the ammunition stocks. It is too easy to skimp on readiness (ammo, training, maintenance) because it isn't really visible until troops are in combat. Then lots of dead American troops highlight the once-unseen (to the public) problem.
NATO and the EU condemned Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea. Russia denies invading Ukraine but somehow Russia ended up with Crimea declared part of Russia. Funny how that worked out.
The Navy says it will continue to conduct Freedom of Navigation Operations in the South China Sea that deny China's illegal claims to the region. China is clearly working up to a forceful response to these FONOPS and we'd best be prepared for a ramming attempt one of these days. Just after writing that I see (via Instapundit) that China is increasingly violent against other claimants to the SCS. One of our ships will be rammed. Will we have forces in position to rescue a stranded ship and prevent the Chinese from "rescuing" it and towing it to a Chinese port?
The French are allowing protesters to rampage rather than risk killing protesters. On the one hand this is proper. You don't kill someone to defend a piece of plate glass. That was the foundation of my riot control training
I might have to see Captain Marvel in the theater despite my concerns, given that lots of people are seeing it.
I don't believe that is a fair criticism at all. Where should we have not dropped bombs during the Obama years and so allowed Moslems to be victimized by jihadis? And so what if drone strikes expanded a lot? The platform is irrelevant, no more or less justified than if a manned plane or artillery dropped the payload; and given that the armed drone was new would of course see more use. And really, simply because we dropped a lot of bombs on European-majority countries from 1942-1945 doesn't mean we were anti-European, now does it? Last week I defended Chelsea Clinton and this week President Obama. The Left is off the rails.
At least they didn't fling poo. That was hilarious. Could Maduro really have put that out to scare us?
If so, they are well shy of this World War II effort.
In Yemen, despite the Iranian propaganda picked up and amplified by Western media that says Saudi Arabia is responsible for the humanitarian crisis, even the UN admits that the Iran-backed Shia rebels are the main source of aid distribution problems. The rebels and their Iranian patron are losing but they can always hope that Westerners (and our Congress in particular) will help snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Amazingly, I have to note my defense of the electoral college system again. Idiots can always make problems worse or make new problems. Popular vote presidential elections is one of them. Also, any scheme that seeks to bypass the Electoral College with a compact of states to cast their state electoral votes for the candidate with the most votes nationwide will be a problem if any state's voters didn't vote with the national majority. How could that negation of popular will in a state pass constitutional scrutiny? Wait, here's something of use:
And really, despite Democratic claims that they are the future and that Republicans will die out, this amount of institution-tampering doesn't speak to a lot of confidence in their future appeal to voters, does it?
This Israeli "Rocks" capability in enemy hands would really blow through our missile defense systems designed for shorter-range (and so slower) ballistic missiles.
Body counts of dead terrorists (or of civilians accidentally killed during the war on terrorists) is truly a bad metric for judging success in the war on terror. But enemy body counts kept internally by the military is certainly a good metric for judging success in the battles against Islamist terrorists as a holding action while the war is fought within the Islamic world over who gets to defines Islam--the minority of radical killers and their supporters who support jihad or the majority of normal Moslems who would rather live in peace. Oh, and I was nearly delirious with joy that the author of the initial link accurately described "proportionality" in combat!
Sansha, the only "city" in the world that is intended to be solely a "strategic service and logistics base."
Is President Trump seriously planning on walking away from Afghanistan and just seeing what happens? (And hoping what happens takes place after his reelection?) Isn't that exactly what Obama did with Iraq before his 2012 reelection campaign? Get ready for a defeat and Afghanistan War 2.0 if that faux "peace" plan is agreed to.
The issue of Crimea is no closer to resolution than it was five years ago when Russia captured and annexed it? Huh? I'd say that the capture and annexation resolved the issue exactly as Russia intended. Resolution is not going to take place with Russia's voluntary relinquishment of the region. And the only reason that Crimea is still a point of contention with the West is that Putin effed up by thinking he could add the Donbas as easily as added Crimea, leaving an open conflict in the Donbas between Russia and Ukraine that the West couldn't just get used to and move on, restoring relations with Russia as it did after the "Goons of August War" against Georgia in 2008.
Pretty much. Decades ago when the World Wide Web took off, I argued that the research office I was in would not be harmed by the ability of our customers to directly look for information because they--as a group and not including all of them, of course--didn't know how to conduct research. We did. What online access did was free us from our once mundane document retrieval portion of our job when our customers knew precisely what they wanted (or simply thought they knew, of course).
Huh. Someone unclear on the "president-for-life" concept. Is this a good sign of transfer of power as this article optimistically framed the resignation? Or is stepping down from the office but keeping the power nothing to boast about and just an example for Putin? Please, I described that path for Putin long ago.
Yes, rule of law is the best way to protect the minority.
The "yellow vest" protesters in France are "rebels without a cause." Yeah, I've noted that the protesters have no real concrete objective and that the battle between them and Macron seems to be a figurative fight to the death.
This is not an article about what an American invasion of Venezuela would like. It is an article warning against invading. Not that I'm in favor of invasion--even if it is the morally right thing to do. But I thought the article might actually be about how an invasion might take place.
Making Russia Grate Again. The subliminal war that Russia unleashed in Crimea in February 2014 continues to be waged in the Donbas and across Europe in a different non-lethal form.
Election "reforms" are really about preventing Republicans from winning. There is insight in this humor. Note to Snopes: humor.
Are Moslems really asking whether it is safe to live in the West? I imagine statistics would show Moslems are quite safer in the West than in Islamic countries, notwithstanding the Christchurch massacre. Not that we in the West shouldn't protect everyone from such threats, whether jihadi or anti-Moslem. Even small relative threats of this type and scale terrorize people out of proportion to the numbers. It is not right to compare the death toll to bathtub accidents, for example. The terror inflicted goes beyond the victims and immediate families and friends. On the issue of Moslems living in in non-Moslem states, that is apparently a lacuna in Islamic teachings, as I recently discovered and mentioned in this post: "As an aside, that's a potential gap in Islamist thinking that could be decisive in reform. Islam has rules on how Moslems are to behave in Moslem societies and even in Moslem societies conquered by non-Moslems. But given the long stretch of early Islamic conquests, nobody setting down doctrine thought about the duties of Moslems who choose to live in a non-Islamic society, as so many have chosen in the modern era. It is a lacuna in Islamic thinking that damages the idea of Islam as an organizing template for every facet of life." Not that one is a cause of the other. The article question just brought the issue to mind.
Oh Lord, I missed the news that Mozambique was hammered, with hundreds killed, by a cyclone and the floods it caused. Zimbabwe was hurt, too, although the force was much spent by the time it reached that country, as well as Malawi. The DOD will offer assistance.
I'll be more impressed when Guaido supporters take control of government buildings in Venezuela.
Brazil and America will sign a deal to let the U.S. launch space payloads from Brazilian territory. Closer to the equator is better. So it may be good for us and definitely good for Brazil. And good for closer relations.
Pretty much nailed it. All Democrats had to do was not act crazy.
Media bias, by one particular number. Tip to Instapundit. Although I would have liked to see the statistics for Fox News Channel for some context. Even Ted Koppel can see merit in the charge.
Resist, by any means necessary. Effing bastard. Of course, he started spying for China in 2014 under Obama, so his Trump justification is just bullshit.
Welcome a new citizen in America!
I don't know why Trump is vilifying McCain who has been dead for a while. It is a small thing to do. Yes, McCain colluded in the effort to delegitimize Trump's presidency. So point that action out. But then stop. But on the other hand, what is with the treatment of McCain as a secular saint? I honor his military service and deeply respect that he endured crippling torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese communists. But McCain was a mixed senator and a horrible presidential candidate in 2008 (although I voted for him). Republican enthusiasm should be a little more nuanced than McCain's family's view which naturally loves him, no? Why is that man who was really quite the jerk lionized but the Trump jerkiness is a threat to the republic? Nor can I take the Democrats going to bat for McCain when they honored him as a Republican "maverick," vilified him as the old and possibly crazy (because of said torture while a POW) opponent of Obama, and returned to praising him as he strayed from Republican policies, using his funeral for one more jab from the grave at Trump.
If someone said all Moslems are guilty for the death count racked up by jihadis, that someone would rightly be called a bigot and shunned. Tip to Instapundit.
Bananas, brides, and bad neighbors. I added the Oxford comma. You're welcome.
Strategypage looks at the DF-26C anti-ship IRBM that China recently moved inland (I'm not sure since SP says they were placed in the Gobi Desert near Tibet but that desert is near Mongolia) to make it less vulnerable to being hit in the launch phase if near the coast. The purpose was to threaten American FONOPs in the South China Sea. We still don't know if the Chinese weapon can work as a carrier killer but we should certainly work on breaking the kill chain.
It scares the Hell out of me that court rulings in polarizing issues vary depending on the political views of the judges reading the law. I don't care which way you want to read it for blame, but it does worry me a great deal for the durability of rule of law here.
Well, I think the models predicted a Romney win in 2012. The models then didn't factor in the massive media bias for Obama. And I don't think the models factor in the even more massive media bias that has been and will focus on defeating Trump no matter who the Democratic candidate is. I know the bias didn't work in 2016 (in the Electoral College, anyway), but the media has turned it up to eleven since then. And I'm fully expecting "twelve."
Syria is upset that Trump talked about recognizing Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights. Assad's anger doesn't bother me, but Trump should not recognize the annexation. It sets a bad precedent for Russia and China. And who knows who else. Not that we should pressure Israel to return it absent a dramatic change in Syria so the key terrain can no longer be used as a launching point for attacks on Israel. But is Trump's statement a gift to Netanyahu to help him win reelection and so, after the election, allow Israel to hammer Hezbollah in Lebanon? Is that military action considered a necessary part of a Trump peace plan that needs the Palestinians in Gaza to lose their Hezbollah ally and Iranian patron (which is under American economic pressure) so they and the West Bank Palestinians are more likely to talk peace with Israel? Oh, and our secretary of state was in Lebanon on Friday urging Lebanon to stand up to Hezbollah. Which would be easier if Israel tears apart Hezbollah. Although the Lebanese seem too far gone to do that, or at least too weak to openly acknowledge the threat. And the Iranians--who created Hezbollah--say they will dig in inside Lebanon. Perhaps we made a last-ditch effort to get Lebanon to do something and the public refusal checks a box for the invasion that would be a large ground raid, essentially. But why talk of the Golan Heights now? Would be quietly suspend recognition of the annexation if Syria mutes its reaction to an Israeli operation in Lebanon? I know, I know. I'm connecting just a couple dots to paint a detailed picture. And I've been wrong for a long time on this issue. So there's that.
If you are upset that Trump with a
Russia is apparently moving more air and naval strike assets to Syria, where Russia earned the right to bases with their intervention on behalf of Assad. For a while I was worried about the potential for Russia to build up forces in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. But some of the worst things didn't happen and so now I figure more Russian power in the Mediterranean just gives NATO fleets in the sea something to do. Of course, should Turkey under Erdogan join up with traditional enemy Russia, that changes things quite a bit.
The Army intends to expand its rotations in the Asia-Pacific region to work with allies. Well, that's a start to real plans, as I wrote in Military Review, to use the Army in Asia for its core competency. Working on interoperability with regional armies is a necessary small-scale start to such an option. Not that I'm eager to have an American army in battle on the Asian continent. But I think China should have to worry about that possibility to complicate their war planning.
Is Libya about to heat up? Of course, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. A battlefield victory by someone who isn't a jihadi is at least a chance for the splintered state to rebuild. Stalemate just allows the misery to roll along with periodic outbreaks of violence followed by UN-supported talks that don't solve anything.
The US may freeze preparations to transfer F-35s to Turkey over the Turkish S-400 purchase. That's semi-good news. I worry that this is the rationale given that I think we have an Erdogan crisis and not an S-400 crisis. Will we really transfer the F-35s to Turkey if Erdogan cancels the S-400 purchase under pressure when he could presumably restore the purchase after getting his hands on some F-35s?
So the man is saying that the Italians wouldn't let him return to Africa and that is why he kidnapped a bus load of school children?
The media has hyped the nonsense that most Americans didn't get a tax cut from 2017 legislation. Most did. This story says few Americans expect to pay lower taxes this year because of the tax cut notwithstanding that the Treasury Department "insists" most did. The reporter could have simply said that most people did--or even did their job to refute that. But no, they just slant the report by implying Treasury has no basis for the claim and comparing that to what people believe from biased news. Not a biased way to report that information at all. And yeah, I got a tax cut.
Let's hope Guaido is correct that Maduro is in his "final phase." It will take a long time to recover from the damage Maduro (and his predecessor Chavez) inflicted on Venezuela, cheered on by delusional Westerners who believed they were compassionate geniuses. The sooner that recovery can start the better.
Destroying the last bastion of the Islamic State caliphate is good. With sanctuary and resources jihadis can do a lot more harm than they can underground and on the run. But don't forget that sanctuaries can be in other states with the cooperation of the government or can be in ungoverned spaces on the map. Never stop looking for them and killing them. It's a necessary holding action until the Islamic world wins their civil war over who gets to define Islam--the murderous jihadi minority or the more reasonable majority.
It could have been her finest hour.
Just ... wow. Some gods require child sacrifice, I guess. Tip to Instapundit.
I'm reasonably sure Democrats will move to impeach Trump at some point in the hope that perhaps the horse will sing. This would be wrong on the facts and for our country. Look, I was against impeaching Bill Clinton at the time. That was pre-blog so you'll have to take my word for it. A resolution of condemnation (without diluting it to condemn all presidential misconduct everywhere) would have been appropriate. And on the September 11, 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack, I have never been a conspiracy theorist as some focused on. My main concerns were the underlying failure to act like we were at war before the attack and the failure to send American forces while the outcome was in doubt. Indeed, as I've noted, that question would have made Hillary Clinton look pretty good given that her State Department security forces did march to the sound of the guns. The other issues of changing administration stories and media cooperation were, as I noted in this post, political factors--however disgusting--that voters decided they didn't care about in November 2012. Anyway, I do have some credibility on hoping the Mueller report settles the whole collusion tantrum.
Despite its honorable beginnings battle the KKK, the SPLC degenerated into a hoax machine that raised money by smearing innocent people over political differences.
Syrian Kurds say all the jihadis they captured are ticking time bombs. They want help. Pity we don't have a secure and isolated detention facility that could hold the worst of the worst until they did of old age.
And let me mention something that bugs me. Stop saying Democrats who now control the House have to prove they can "govern." The Congress does not govern. The executive branch governs. The legislative branch legislates as its primary function (with oversight of the executive a related function). The legislative branch does not govern. Why do people say that when nobody ever says the Supreme Court must prove it can govern? I complained about this when Democrats said this of Republican control in Congress and it annoyed me then, too.
