A Gringo in Rural Mexico: Sent from our spies in Extreme Central Texas

Saturday 2 July 2016

Sent from our spies in Extreme Central Texas - A Real and True analysis of Benghazi

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The observers from the outpost in Extreme Central
Texas received this communique that can only
be reviewed by the OROG Community and/or
anyone that community might wish to reveal
this reconaissance. We submit it to the readers
as a set of valid observations and very probably
extremely accurate deductions.

Xxx, Xxxxx, et al,

I know you have all been waiting for my erudite analysis of the

Benghazi report. Sorry to be slow, but the social, cultural and

athletic distractions of The Villages have lured me away from

any serious reading. I mean, should I stay in and study the

report or go out and play pickleball with a really hot 65

year old chick? And by “hot” I do not mean the

temperature in Central Florida.

I have spent a few hours reading the report and my primary

conclusion is based on something I learned as a young action

officer on the Joint Staff. This was during the Carter

Administration and my job was working papers on Foreign

Military Sales (FMS) policy. My immediate boss was an

Army Col, but he was a nonentity, so I normally got my

guidance from Ace Lyons. At the time Ace was a new one

star and not greatly concerned the minutiae of FMS.

However, we were often required to go to interagency

meetings on FMS subjects and he would ask for a

quick briefing.

One evening I was attempting to talk to him about a subject as

he was packing up his briefcase to go home. I was in the middle

of my passionate defense of the Joint Staff position when he

interrupted to ask for the bottom line. I said that the bottom

line was that the State Department guys did not understand that

in 10 years………….

Ace: Don’t be stupid!

Me: Sir?

Ace: You said something about the State Department and

10 years.

That is just stupid. What do you think the long range planning

horizon is over at State?

Me: (Knowing the insults usually came in groups of three.)

Nine years?

Ace: That is dumb even for a 1310. But, let me teach you

something about the way things are in these meetings we go

to. No one at my level, and very few at your level, in the

State Department can think of anything beyond the next

Presidential Election. That is it. Just until the next election.

When the military talks about long range planning they

ignore us unless there is to be a press release. Then their

only concern is the effect the wording might have on the

election.

Ace’s words seemed a bit harsh at the time. But, Ace

when on to the 4 star level so perhaps he had a valid

perspective. His words did come back to me many times

during a later Attaché tour and 10 years as a contractor

working on State Dept programs.

The thought that State’s planning horizon was only out

to the next election came back again as I read the Benghazi

report. It occurred to me that I had been looking at the

problems from a military perspective and so much of what

was done simply did not make sense. So many things that

happened, or did not happen, were in Ace’s words “stupid.”

But, in reading about the various meetings and e-mails

it occurred to me that it was basically a State Dept

problem (with the CIA as a silent partner) and I should

look at it from their perspective. And suddenly it was

all crystal clear.

The REAL problem was that there was an election in less

than 60 days. The prime directive therefore, was to

minimize the bad press. Fortunately the video that had

cause a bit of a demonstration in Cairo presented a way

to place the blame for the deaths on right wing idiots.

How could the Administration be blamed for a morally

justified riot that happened with no warning?

In the first few hours after the attack, there was the

minor problem of getting the people and bodies out

of Benghazi. Doing that in a way that would establish

and preserve the fiction that the “video” was the cause

of the “riot” was important. The last thing they wanted

was to have some door kickers going into Benghazi.

That might make it seem as if there might be an

organized military opposition. What if there was

a fire fight and a marine was killed? Would that be

a combat death? NOT GOOD!

The answer was to keep the military away from

Benghazi at all costs. Tell all the military commands

that an evacuation was arranged and they should

hold positions (can you say “stand down”) and then

hope the evacuation took place without any

opposition. If we communicated to everyone

in Benghazi that we only wanted to get our bodies

out and that no retaliation would take place,

perhaps no one would attack the convoy to the

airport or the vulnerable aircraft on the ground.

Once everyone was in Tripoli it was just a matter

of telling everyone as often as possible that there

had been a riot over a video, and then keeping that

idea operative until after the election. Fortunately

they could throw the creator of the video in jail, etc.

So, on Sunday, a few days after the attack, we have

Susan Rice going on all five Sunday morning

political shows to propagate that lie. I have

watched all of her appearances on YouTube.

My absolute favorite is the State of Union

appearance with Candy Crowley.

Candy certainly knew the truth and was too

embarrassed to ask the exact question Susan

needed, but she got close. Close enough for

Susan to get all of her well-rehearsed talking

points in while Candy sat in silence and did not

interrupt. Here is the link to the YouTube

portion of the show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cetu6SMiZsY

With the party line established by Susan,

it was only necessary to hold on for a few

more weeks until the election. They could

trust most of the press and media not to ask

difficult questions, Romney to be too much

of a gentleman to seriously raise the issue,

and various talking heads to discredit FOX

or any other media that got out of line.

Questions about the attack were raised by

various Senators and Congressmen but

they were not widely covered. Susan Rice’s

“talking points” were questioned, but that

was a side show and only added to the

confusion. The statements of the families

of the dead were an unfortunate footnote,

but not a major problem as only FOX

covered their anger and grief.

And it worked perfectly. Confusion about

Benghazi reigned supreme and nothing was

as widely covered as Rice’s Sunday

appearances. Anyone who raised

questions was accused of being a

conspiracy junky by the Kool-Aid

drinkers. Add a few more lies about

keeping medical plans and doctors

and the election was won.

After the 2012 election the time horizon

shifted to the 2016 election. So the game

plan became one of delay, obstruction,

executive privilege, etc. Only a Republican

congress would do any serious investigating,

and every committee would have loyal

Democrats to loudly proclaim the probing

was a political witch hunt. CIA director

David Petraeus was the wild card, but he

screwed up and allowed himself to be

discredited.

So now we just a few weeks from the 2016

election and the plan is working nicely.

Unfortunately the Benghazi committee

discovered the Clinton email server issue,

but the results of that investigation can be

delayed until well after the election. Then

a new time horizon can be established.

When I previously assumed the lack of

military response to the attack on the

Consulate and Annex was a massive screw

up, I was dead wrong. It was obviously

part of an extremely well-conceived plan

to get past the election with the falsehood

that the video was the culprit. It was so

easy. Keep telling the lie, deny, obstruct,

and win. Who can argue with success?

I will cease being interested in the

command center/military response

aspects of the Benghazi catastrophe.

I am now certain that the plan to keep

anyone in uniform far away from the

action was in place very early in the

evening. Marines in Rota? Give them

uniform changes and send them to

Sigonella. F-16s? Even if they were

armed, fueled and ready to launch

they would not have been used.

One would not want another accident

like what happened at Desert One in

1980. If a shoulder fired missile shot

one down it would be big trouble. How

could one fit that into the video/mob

scenario? It was best to just tell

AFRICOM that the evacuation

would take place without any

need for cover and there was

definitely no need to send

anyone in to recover anything

from the Annex or the wreckage

of the Consulate.

Looking at this through Ace’s lens,

everything falls into place for me.

Even the minority report is logical

if you believe they knew and supported

the plan from the beginning.

As of this moment I am officially

bored with the whole Benghazi thing.

Bored..... and revolted.

Attachments area

Preview YouTube video [FLASHBACK] On CNN Susan Rice blames the internet video for Benghazi

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Our little place rests on three and a fraction acres, fronting on the Rio Corona, which is lined with over-1,000 year old cypress trees. The nearby Sierra del Cautivo…a major segment of the overall Sierra Madre Oriental that dominate most of eastern Mexico, lies to the west by about three miles. guards the many springs that maintain the almost perpetual flow from those heights (up to 12,000 fasl) while our place is situated right at 1,000 feet above sea level.

Give us a call, come by and visit…it is truly a different venture in the most positive sense. We can be reached by our email - privatouring@gmail.com - which is our preferred method of communicating.

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What is an OROG?

Once a person lands on our page, that individual becomes a member of the Order of Readers of the Old Gringo, (OROG). There are no dues or assessments to pay, no meetings, no requirements. We are not associated with the KKK, the WCTU, the French Masons, or the Global Warming Glacier

Protection Committee.

We do have a distant connection with the Knights of the Golden Circle and hold the maps to the internment sites of 34 tonnes of Confederate Gold, and 1,000 tonnes of Mexican Imperial Silver (bar and coinage) derived from the collapse of the Reign of Maximillian von Hapsburg, Emperor of Mexico (1863 - 1867). I think we can remember where we put it.

All kidding aside, we are acerbic, but we do not bite. We do believe in our antiquated philosophy, but we try to not impose our quirks and beliefs so far as to be disrespectful.

El Gringo Viejo

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Wise Words

Communism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill

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Be sure you are right, then go ahead.

I bark at no man's bid. I will never come and go, fetch and carry, at the whistle of the Great Man in the White House, no matter who he is.

I told the people of my district that I would serve them as faithfully as I had done. But, if such was not to be, then you may all go to Hell, and I shall go to Texas!

David Crockett

oooooooooo

And on and on it goes. The more the Government gives away, the more it takes, and the less Americans do for themselves, until finally, like Europe, there is nobody left to do anything, and there is nobody left to pay for, the nothing that is not done.

And, yes, Virginia, there truly is a Santa Clause, and he and Mrs. Clause and their helpers care greatly for the good children of the Planet. So long as there is happiness, kindness, charity, generosity, and the Spirit of Fellowship, Santa Clause will be there, representing those noble things, and he will always move in a spiritual way so as to provoke humankind to goodness.

El Gringo Viejo

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“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”

Booker Tallaferro Washington

oooooooooo

It is impossible to make a poor man rich by making a rich man poor.

Abraham Lincoln

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El Gringo Viejo: a fair description

Life for El Gringo Viejo began on the Texas-Mexico frontier, near McAllen, Texas literally on a real, live farm. The farmer, as one might imagine, was his father, who had moved with his parents from Gwinner, Sargent County, North Dakota in 1915 - 1916 period, down to the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. (And yes, Virginia, that is the way Sargent County is spelled.)

His parents farmed in an area close to the new community named after its founder, called Ed Couch, in Hidalgo County of Texas. My grandfather is buried in the Weslaco Municipal Cemetery about 10 feet away from his friend, Ed Couch.

After studies, and a stint in the 1st Cavalry, 12th Regiment (mounted), Headquarters Squadron of the United States Army...riding warhorses back and forth along the Rio Grande from the late 1920s and early 1930s. He did not speak much about his service, but we determined that he apparently made rank of 1st Lieutenant.

El Gringo Viejo's Father established his farming and citrus grove-care operation just north of McAllen, Texas. Mother was a housewife and a professional woman....a learned, eloquent, well-read woman.

They were educated people, my father winding up as a Superintendent of a major school/facility of the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation in Austin, Texas after a twenty year career in education at the secondary level. He had degrees in History, Psychology, and Education Administration.

El Gringo Viejo is the last of three children, all males. Number one was Milton Birchard, Jr. who was born in 1936 and died in a vehicular incident in 1988. He was narcoleptic. He held a doctorate in geography from Louisiana State University and was head of the Department there for a good while.

Number two is Norman Francis, who was born during the WWII situation in 1942 and became an important Republican political engineer and fundraiser. He served as Executive Director of the Republican Party of Texas during the late 1960s and early 1970s and as Senator John G. Tower's immediate Executive Assistant. The Senator is the Godfather of Norman's first son.

Norman died at age 77 in Austin, Texas and I was one of four eulogists who was chosen to speak at his en memoriam at the Austin Club in downtown most Austin…within sight of the State Capitol.

It was a personal duty and very rewarding

in every way.

My arrival was in 1947, and I was destined to confound my parents and all those around me. Educated entirely in public schools in McAllen, skipping the third grade, and stumbling out of my high school in the upper 90% of a class of 606. I

attended and graduated from Southwest Texas State University (now named Texas State University, unfortunately), being one of the few conservatives to graduate out of the School of Sociology, although my treatment at the hands of my tormentor-professors was not so unpleasant in those days. Emphasis of studies were social demography, and Latin American Affairs with a concentration on Mexico's history and current political evolution, with a minors in History, Geography, and Political Science.

El Gringo Viejo is one of the old, unreconstructed high-church Episcopalians. Politically, he is very fundamentally conservative. He prefers Baseball to football, and considers that baseball with a designated hitter for the pitcher should be called "poofy-ball". Favourite major league team of all times? The Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s. It will never be the same again.
El Gringo Viejo's father was born to a Hudson Valley-type girl and a man who had lost two older brothers who served in the Pennsylvania 96th Regiment of Volunteer Infantry during the War Between the States.

The surnamed line (Newton) originated from East Anglia, not far from a place called Washington in northeastern England. They came into Boston Harbour, Massachusetts in 1642 (the 1st voyage of the Mayflower had overbooked), and settled there and in Maine as well as spreading out to Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania, over the generations for the first 220 years.
Another batch of folks, mainly Anglo, settled in the middle Hudson Valley. There was another group of Celto-Teutonics types from Saxony and Prussia, establishing and settling along the Hudson River from around what is Catskill County northward to Duchess and Rennselaer Counties around a place named Red Hook. The main group came in during the early 1650s.

My mother's people were another English line of long-term Southern and Tennessee people, from the Eastern part of that State, who originally came in during the 1660s through Virginia and North Carolina, and finally into Eastern Tennessee, settling in and around a county to be named Franklin, and helping to establish the city of Winchester. Almost all of these people originated from southwestern England, near the frontier with Wales.

Only recently did we verify that she had many people involved in the service of the Confederacy. One died in northern Mississippi, another Captain Asa Grant, 2nd Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry, was severely wounded and succumbed to his wounds finally in 1869, and another hung around in an Ohio POW camp (Camp Chase) for about 13 months, while three others were either wounded or died in action, including David Limbaugh, Lieutenant, 42 Tennessee Infantry. Another five made it through relatively unscathed.

Almost all were, oddly enough, related to the great-grand uncles and gggg-grandfathers down to gg-grandfathers of Rush Limbaugh. The gggg-grandfather came into the Colonies in the early 1740s from a Prussia and Saxony background, and served in both civilian and military capacities to the Continental government and Army. He was the XO of a Militia Battalion of 3,000 Pennsylvania effectives. They honed their military readiness under the supervision of Gen. von Steuben and someone named Washington at some place called Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

A grandson of his, Isaac, settled in Tennessee after the War for Independence against King George III. So Rush and I share grandfathers, four generations deep on the American Continent.

It should be stated here that were I to be called to declare, my allegiance would still be with the Southern Cause, although I bear no rancor against those who feel the same about their instinct to maintain the Union. Oddly enough, both my mother (a Southerner) and my father (a true Yankee by blood) believed that we would have remained closer if we had separated, and each side gone the ways of their own yearning, but amicably.

The last of the English (El Gringo Viejo's) line came during the time between the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. They left County Wicklow, where they had been involved, apparently, in that peculiar Anglo - Scots/Irish practice of making whiskey by the use of peat for fuel. They were also involved in the business of production and processing of various types of grains as well as the production of whiskey, gin, and beer. By their surnames one would know that, while coming out of Ireland, they were actually English, one with the surname of Christian and the wife, Webster. They had, in fact, married in Christ's Church Cathedral, Anglican, in downtown Dublin in 1796. They landed in New York, set up shop in the City among previously arrived relatives, and then in Albany. We have some record that this Christian who married the Webster had actually lived in the colonies, but travelled several times back and forth between the Spirits businesses in England and Ireland and the New World. They wound up as the generations progressed in and around Minneapolis (St. Anthony) & Saint Paul, Minnesota, and Racine, Wisconsin. My particular line went from New York to Alabama, then North Carolina, and then Wisconsin to join up with the rest of the extended family, finally in Minnesota, before the War Between the States.

The Time Line of entry of all lines of my children's blood ancestry on their mother's side in the New World begins in 1578, when Spaniards of mixed Hebraic and Iberian peoples, and others of ancestry from Portugal, Galicia, and southern Spain entered into what was to become Monclova and Saltillo, Coahuila. They are brought under the auspices of the Explorer, Conquistador, and Colonizer Jose Luis Carvajal y de la Cueva, with elements settling in Lampazos and Cerralvo (Nuevo Leon), in Palofox (Texas), and Revilla (Tamaulipas) on the Rio Bravo.
Also, the Count of the Sierra Gorda, Col. Jose de Escandon brought another group of mainly Spanish, Portuguese, and Azoreans in the early 175os, settling along the Rio Bravo (Grande), and then on the north (Texas) side, spreading up to what is now Yorktown, Texas (near and southeast of San Antonio de Bexar, more or less) before and during the Texas Republican period.

My children and theirs are qualified to join the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Sons of Liberty, The Sons of the Grand Army of the Union, The Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the Daughters of the Confederacy. By my side they are 16th generation English Colonial - American and 6th generation Texian. By my wife's side, my children are 23rd generation northernmost New Spain, Texian, and American. Isolating Texas alone, my grandchildren are 15th generation Texian.

LIKE?

Cats, and then dogs.

Fishing, even a bit of bird watching, now and then.

Really good music..antique, old, 1950s and early 1960s rock and roll, classical - Hayden, Mozart, Beethoven, both Strauses, and many others, African tribal sounds en chorus, Mexican bolero...mariachis when they play out-of-doors, some country and quite a bit of the old western (Sons of the Pioneers, the Texas Ploughboys, Marty Robbins "Gunfighter Ballads, for instance.), even some of my own piano works, bagpipes, Enya, marimba, Caribe.

The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess always seemed to me to have been, and remains, a true masterpiece of Americana.

Well maintained Firearms, smooth running small equipment, old autos that respond to repair and upkeep and keep going. Used to have BMWs and so forth, but being old helps tone things down a bit.

Antiques, and antiquities...Meso-American archeology...and religious history. Formal religious services among the Orthodox..as in Anglican, Roman, Orthodox and Conservative Jewish services and celebrations. Hard to find, now.

Overnight radio, rightwing talk radio until it becomes overly tedious and repetitive.

Weather and climate.

And strangely during the past few years,cooking. Not just barbequeing...but actually dishing up gourmet-type stuff...and gardening to a purpose.

We grow a lot of our own spices for our little bed and breakfast and we specialise in flowerng plants, bushes, and trees that attract bees and literally hundreds of species of common to extremely rare birds to our place.

Lifelong Republican, honourably discharged - United States Army (conscripted).

Now drifted into the position of favouring the amicable withdrawal of Texas from the American Union. My grandchildren are 15th generation Coahuila/Texas by my wife and 8th generation Texas by me and my will is to have them answer for the debt of Texas and not for the debts incurred by the National Socialists who have taken possession of the central government in Washington, D.C.

DISLIKES?
Any kind of socialism...bolshevik, national, marxist, social democratic, Trotskyite, progressive, ....and any kind of socialist.

The Ku Klux Klan and such types who figure that they have to hate somebody because of how he/she was born. They are just role players, resucitated by the Communist Party USA in the 1920s, whose members are fueled by a well deserved sense of inferiority.

And almost all social activism.

Almost all labour union officers and almost all labour unions. (There are some exceptions.)

Public assistance of any kind. All welfare and/or charity should and must be privately handled in order to avoid the trap wherein we have fallen, that being the multigenerational slide into the abyss of forlorn hopelessness that is government slavery and dependence. That slide is cheerfully supported by politicians who love to buy votes with other peoples' money.

Lotteries operated by governments.

Litter, filth, graffiti, gangs, and waiting in line for people using food stamps whil'st they argue with the cashier about how they "need" this or that to be covered...when they have three carts with 450 USD of snacks and things we cannot afford because we are in an 'upper income" category.

Church reformers who want to change my church instead of them going to another church and just leaving me alone.

Medications for boys who are over-active, and medications in general.

Lite beer, lite Coca Cola, fat-free, lo-cal, artificial sugars and sweeteners, anything marked "healthy" on food packages, sugar-free, margarine, and driving 23 miles to buy gasoline over there because it is 2 cents per gallon cheaper.

Any government programme designed to help anybody; 94% of the time the programme winds up morphing into some kind of monster. Then liberals and do-gooders will propose another programme, twice as costly, to cure the ills caused by the first cure-all.

Officiousness, and the term "non-profit", as if there is some kind of moral superiority in the failure to produce wealth.

Physical abuse of an animal, an extraterrestrial, a child, slave, woman, or anything like a tractor or power tool, firearm, sewing machine, or an auto, etc.
Loud and/or sharp noises, especially when such noises have no particular purpose.

Wasting anything, from paper towels to Clorox to cake and cookie batter...anything. And....waiting in a line.