Friday 30 August 2013

Running Analysis - Choices range from Bad to Worst Possible

EL ZORRO has made one of his passes....and since we were out in the back pasture...we neither heard nor saw neither hide nor hair of him or his mount.  But the urgency of the message, and the necessary depressing tone is like a stereo whose one speaker says, "Your stereo is broken," while the other speaker is declaring, "And, we are going to electrocute you to-night". 
 
     For OROGs who might not be aware Fort Worth and the McAllen area have been pegged by young, single Middle Eastern men to use as their points  of concentration in Texas.  We have, of necessity, had to wonder if we are to be open and friendly in our childish, Texian manner, or if we have to consider the obvious.   People have gone to the airport in McAllen to take a flight to Dallas or Houston and then on to some other place, and found themselves emotionally unable to board the plane due to the presence of a cluster of Middle Eastern men who were also boarding the same flight.
     This is a terrible state of things, but as I have stated before;   no Mohammed Atta, no problem hanging around with Middle Easterners.   I did not ever take active measures to offend Middle Eastern people.   The Japanese seem to at least accept the cold observation, "No Pearl Harbour, no Hiroshima....No Bataan March, no Nagasaki".   And we have a Toyota Plant to show for it!  In San Antonio, no less.
 
     So, when El Zorro writes these notes in black ink on grey paper, and his scowl is pronounced, believe me, we would like to be writing about our last fishing trip.  But, first with a broad brush and then suddenly with a sharpened pencilled brush, El Zorro bares the truth that has been forced upon us by a uselessly incompetent, arrogant, ill-trained, un-educated poseur who thinks he is a "real president".   He has put himself into the position of being the squadron commander of the Al Qaeda Air Force.   Wow!   Hope and change.
 
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to  -     El Gringo Viejo
from - El Zorro 
Que tal, amigo Viejo?


What are Obama’s goals?  We don’t know but we can see some evidence herewith.
 
George W. Bush had a coalition and Congressional approval for our intervention in Iraq which resulted in a huge success.  As regards Syria today, Obama wants to act unilaterally without necessarily getting Congressional approval as he is obligated to per the War Powers Act and, in the case of a declared war, Article II of the United States Constitution.
 
It is not a pretty thing, a people being gassed and the images of those writhing in agony.  But, we are getting what the Obama Administration and John (Lurch) Kerry want us to see to support an unnecessary and ineffective strike on Bashir al-Assad and Syria. 
 
Unilateral actions and support by Obama in the middle east have resulted in regime changes from bad guys to terrorist organizations i.e. Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, etc.  He has left Iraq susceptible to take over by radical Islamists as well as, soon, Afghanistan.  Every intervention in the middle east by the American President has resulted in a fundamentalist victory.  In Syria,  Assad is a Sunni and his opposition is not all innocent citizens but mostly Shia Iranian, al-Qaeda in Iraq, and al-Qaeda splinter group insurgents.
 
Secretary of State Kerry sounds so much like his twin brother, Colin Powell, as he tries to tug at our heart strings with cherry picked footage of victims supposedly suffering from the effects of chemical exposure.  There is no reason to doubt that is real; however, the lies and deceit make it difficult to believe this is as prevalent as they want us to.
 
As to support for an attack of any kind, the President is obligated by law to get Congressional approval.  In the case of a military action, not declared war, he has to give Congress 48 hours’ notice to get approval.  In regard to a coalition he has one state, France, who is ready for a strike.  France might as well be a Muslim country as they are controlled at least covertly by the 8% and growing Muslim population. The Muslims in France do not integrate with the population but practice Sharia which is condoned by the French government out of fear.  The demographics in western Europe are quickly changing by immigration from Islamists from the middle east and then by propagation in the settlements within the European states.  The Islamist demographics are changing in the U.S. as seen in Chicago and other major cities where the Islamist communities segregate themselves and establish their own Sharia law at the exclusion of U.S. and State law.  A very informative source, The Grand Jihad, documents radical Islamist migration to America and sources from the middle east.
 
What Americans should be concerned about is this President’s support for and interaction with the Muslim Caliphate and specifically the fundamental Islamic strength.  Whether intentionally or out of ignorance, his foreign policy actions have all supported and strengthened the radical Islamists.  The world demographics are in favour of radical Islam and the Sharia law that comes with it.  He disregards our Constitution to further his ideological goals which seem to support an evil caliphate.  We would hope that is not the case.
 
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, and now Syria.  “Inch by inch, step by step…”  We are unwittingly fighting for Islam and against Christianity, Judaism, and all other faiths as well as atheist and agnostic.  America is under siege from within. 
 
Israel is left hanging.  If Assad launches against Israel it will be his warning to the U.S. and the fault of a threatened or real attack on Syria by the U.S., not by the radical insurgents.  Obama would attack Syria to empower the insurgents at the expense of Israel… so it seems.  Would he allow casualties in Israel under the pretence of stopping the use of chemicals by Assad?  This does not make sense unless our President has another agenda as eluded to here.
 
What happens next? 
 Z


Where Have All The Generals Gone? Long Time Passing?

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Some of this was reported, but not all.
This is an interesting read.  Wonder if Obama IS the one making these decisions or is
Valerie Jarrett and her ilk behind all this.
     (lead comment submitted by the secret contributor who lives between El Zorro and El Gringo Viejo, somewhere in Extreme Central Texas on the Big Sandy Creek.   El Gringo Viejo tacks on the famous pacifist anthem that pointlessly moans about things without considering that most Russians do not speak German, most Germans do not speak Russian, most Americans cannot speak German, Russian, Italian, or Japanese.   All of that was because somebody fought to assure that that would be the case.   The American soldier, marine, airman, sailor, coast guardsman, and merchant mariner.)
 
So, El Gringo Viejo wants to further ask the White House in these times...."Where have all the Real Generals and Admirals gone?"






 DUTY     HONOUR    COUNTRY




The Farewell Speech to West Point's Graduating Class
 
 


 
 
 

 
 


 
 

 



 

 
 
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THE GENERALS 
 
 
 

Where’s integrity and the closing of ranks from the General Staff (similar to the revolt of the Admirals in 1949 against another lousy president)? Smokestack
 
 
 

During the Bush administration there were only two American commanders of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Under Obama there have so far been five. There has been a new ISAF commander nearly every single year that Obama has been in office. The only exception is 2012 when Obama was too busy trying to win an election to bother further sabotaging a losing war.
 
The parade of musical chair generals began when Obama demanded the resignation of General McKiernan. The Washington Post called the firing of a wartime commander a "rare decision." It was the first time since the days of General Douglas MacArthur [UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY CLASS OF 1903] that a four-star commanding general had been purged during a war.
 
The decision may have been rare, but it was not unexpected. General McKiernan was fired for the same offense that General McArthur had been targeted during the Korean War: He had demanded competency from an incompetent Democrat.
 
McKiernan had embarrassed Obama by demanding more troops to fight the war. The situation came to a head as General McKiernan pressed an indecisive Obama to make a decision. It was a devastating scene for an administration which had covered its pivot away from Iraq with concern trolling about winning in Afghanistan. The troops would be delivered, but McKiernan would pay the price.
 
General McKiernan's firing was put down to the need for fresh ideas. McKiernan was deemed too "old school" because he wanted to fight an old-fashioned war against the Taliban while Obama Inc. believed that the war couldn't be won by beating the Taliban, but by winning the hearts and minds of Afghans. It was a fashionable and doomed strategy that required sacrificing the lives and limbs of thousands of American soldiers to political correctness.
 
The old-school general who had once said, "I don't understand ever putting your men and women in harm's way, without their having the full ability to protect themselves. That also means operating on actionable intelligence to defeat insurgents, and protect your forces. That's how you keep your soldiers alive," was clearly not the man for that job.
 
Replacing him as ISAF commander was General McChrystal [USMA76]. McChrystal was everything that McKiernan wasn't. He was hip fresh blood. He voted for Obama, listened to the right music and was a big fan of counterinsurgency. He hooked up with Greg Mortenson and handed out copies of Three Cups of Tea to his staff. The book proved to be a fraud and so did the COIN strategy for winning over the Afghans.
 
American soldiers were prevented from defending themselves to avoid offending the Afghans and the war was not moving forward. McChrystal claimed that he had presented a plan to Washington for defeating the Taliban, but Washington only wanted their capabilities degraded. The relationship between McChrystal and Obama also degraded, and McChrystal was fired over a negative Rolling Stone article that revealed that the ISAF commander held Obama and his cronies in contempt.
 
Urgently, Obama swapped out General McChrystal for General Petraeus [USMA74], a former enemy now turned wartime ally. In only two years, Obama had gone through three generals and fired two wartime four-star generals, setting a new record for mismanaging a war.
 
Petraeus's move from Central Command to commanding the ISAF was unprecedented and did not last long. With the Taliban undefeated and the conflict shifting from a military war to a campaign of drone strikes and targeted assassinations, General Petraeus shifted over to the CIA to command the new fallback position of the war effort as Director Petraeus.
 
But a year later, Petraeus met the same fate as McKiernan and McChrystal after alienating the CIA top brass which enmeshed him in a scandal. It did not help matters any that Republicans were salivating over the idea of a Petraeus candidacy in 2016.
 
Petraeus had been replaced by General Allen [USNA76], who became enmeshed in the same scandal, and the confirmation hearings of his replacement, General Dunford, were sped up. This month, Dunford has taken command of an ISAF in retreat as Afghanistan has become the new Iraq. And Dunford has become the fifth ISAF commander under Obama. Of his four predecessors, all have ended their careers under a cloud.
 
The War in Afghanistan has been lost and so have the careers of most of its commanders. Obama has constantly swapped out generals, and unlike the rotating allied ISAF commanders during the Bush era, many of them were fired because they threatened Obama politically in some way.
 
The record is an ugly one, but it is not limited to the war theater in Afghanistan. After the Benghazi disaster, General Carter Ham of AFRICOM was reportedly edged out after telling a Republican Congressman that he had not received any requests for support. His replacement, General Rodriguez [USMA76], had earlier taken over part of McKiernan's job after Obama had forced him out.
 
More recently General Mattis, the commander of United States Central Command, Petraeus's old job, was booted out without even a personal phone call for being too hawkish about Iran. The insult was unprecedented and the reason was the same. Like McKiernan and McChrystal, Mattis had offended “important” people in the Obama Administration. And for that he paid the price.
 
General Dempsey [USMA74], the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, exemplifies the costs of career survival in the age of Obama. Dempsey echoes everything that the civilians tell him. He never disagrees with them in public and likely not in private. Whatever new gimmick comes out of the White House, whether it's Green Energy or homosexuality, he's right there behind it and out in front of it.
 
Dempsey has no ideas of his own and he doesn't need any. He has nothing to bring to the table except a willingness to act as Obama's pet parrot in a uniform. When McChrystal first met Obama, he recalled thinking that Obama was "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the room full of military brass. That observation helped get McChrystal fired and these days it's the military brass that feels uncomfortable and intimidated by Obama Inc.
SOURCE: FPM
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.


Thursday 29 August 2013

We'll surround our wastrel with the words from great traditions

A bit of this came from the secret ranch on the Big Sandy Creek...once again, as the weatherman said one time in Austin..."....in Extreme Central Texas".  We are still trying to figure that one out.
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This bellicose Anthem is one of the great sounds that come
out of Orthodox and Protestant temples.  Oddly, although
pacifists and Jesus-haters love to point out how "un-Christian"
the song really is, most OROGs know that there is a "rest of the
story" angle here.  Far from being a song to pump the adrenalin
of doughboys trekking off to the trenches of Alsace and the barbed
wire and mustard gas to kill Germans...it is actually the Battle Anthem
of those whose enemy is the Devil.   Their battle plan is to pick up the Devil's
wounded soldiers....left on the field of battle by the Devil...left for someone
else to attend.   And someone does.   But it's the other military unit on the
battlefield.   The Salvation Army.  This is the theme anthem written
especially for The Salvation Army.
 
 
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1175577_286748068132685_9205267_n.jpg
THE RELIGIOUS FOUNDATION OF THE LOW INFORMATION "CITIZEN"

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This very early Gregorian Chant is thought by many to be one of
the inspirations in the construct of the Nicene Creed, that statement
of faith that embodied what scores of Bishops in conference thought
best united the Christian World's understanding of what Christianity
was, is, and would forever be.   It's a little long, but worth the effort.

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As always it is a pleasure to be with everyone here.  More later.
El Gringo Viejo
 
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Cynical? El Gringo Viejo? Naaaahhhh.

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    The Obsolete Press isolates on the Cyrus girl.   Then they hyperventilate over Syria for a while.  Then they extoll the wondrous speech (?) made by the poseur, "standing on the same spot" as the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.   It is surprising that none of them caught the smiling ghost of the good pastor, looking over the shoulder of the lazy, incompetent marxist poseur approvingly and regarding the man who would have had a son who looked a lot like someone or maybe someone else.
     Do you think there were 2,000,000 people at the protest or was it 5,000,000?   Well, we think....actually there were some estimates from Farakhan's mother ship....that seem to indicate that there were 10,000,000 and that there would have been more.   The thing is that there were well over 100,000,000 in offices throughout the USA trying to obtain voter ID who have been locked in hand-to-hand combat with Ted Cruz and 400,000,000 German Shepherds wearing Nazi arm-bands who had about  600,000,000 un-fed African American children being held hostage by Cruz and his Tea Party stooges and because of the sequestration caused by the Republicans.
 
     "Well yes, George Stephanopoulos, why don't you weigh in here?   Were you aware of the massive numbers of people who have come here....like on the side of a hill....only five loaves...and two fish and one man who could cure them all....like the Obama Socialised Medicine Initiative... It's so inspiring!"
 
     "You all might not believe this but, as Obama's acolytes went silently through the 1,200,000,346 (one billion, two hundred thousand, and three hundred and forty six and no/hundredths) , passing out little gift sacks to African American, Hispanic Americans, recently arrived immigrants seeking refuge, women, other minorities, lesbians, transgendered, the reverse-re-transgendered, middle class, young women, students, Union people, handicapped, gays, and Indians of every tribe and nation, and all the historically oppressed and disenfranchised, the unemployed left over from 8 years of neglect by Cheney and Bush, the poor, the hungry, and those people just looking for an honest helping hand, and who seek to have those who have too much to pay their fair share and who are only looking for another 43,400 weeks of unemployment compensation....Well, a lot of them began to look just like Obama....and Saint Trayvon the Martyr.  But I diverge;   in every little sack there was a New York Telephone Directory - sized lifetime book of food stamps and birth control pills and devices.   Some of that of course given by Saint Flukie, who has already been beatified and canonised by Pope Nancy Pelosi, who worked this crowd as the on-site Pope  of the Real, Live, and RELEVANT Roman Catholic Whatever.   Nancy looked really good with that new piece of King Tut's skin that the Egyptian Antiquities Commission loaned her for her last operation.  Or perhaps I should say for her most recent facial touch-up"
 
     "Well George, that is truly inspiring.  We noticed that no Republicans came to this great celebration."
 
     "Yes, and we just had this report,   which reads, 'It is thought that the Republicans did not make it here in time due to the fact that they had no time to rub down their mounts, wash their satin sheets and pointed hats after a very busy night, last night, lynching, burning down churches, and of course those really impressive cross burnings they do."
 
     "Ah, yes.   Boys will be boys and racists will always be racists. Well, thanks for the report, Ge0rge.  We'll send all of this over to the editing desk"
 
El Gringo Viejo
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Wednesday 28 August 2013

The Problem, We know. Tell the Mountain what the solution is ....







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     Over and over we hear that the problem of minority poverty can be traced back to the disintegration of the nuclear family.   There are very few two-parent families.  That's the problem.   Whites in 1950 had a 4% illegitimacy birth rate.  Blacks had a 7% rate.   Latins of all types had a 5% rate.   Fast forward to 2010 and we find that Whites have climbed up to 19% rate, Blacks have a 77% rate, and Latins of all types have a 45% rate.
 
     What happened?  The abolition of shame and pride.
  The abolition of a certain publicly understood and practiced Catechism, Orthodox or Reformed.  The shame is not what the anti-moralists think.   All parents know that their children are going to "fool around''.   The parents know this because they know that their parents "fooled around".   But the shame...to an old fashioned Episcopalian...was never in the "fooling around" per se, but in fooling around without having enough detachment from oneself to recognise that unguarded, undisciplined self-indulgence might produce another little bundle of joy without any preparation.  The hovering Buzzard of having to FEED the bundle of joy and CLOTHE the bundle of joy and SHELTER the bundle of joy and NURTURE the bundle of joy.....just the two of us....is a daunting anchor of obligation.  To confront it requires maturity and selflessness, and money, and self-reliance, and money.
     To-day, the Catechisms have been replaced by a devious Uncle who wears a funny top-hat, and dresses in out-of-date formal wear, coloured in red, white, and blue.....Uncle Sam.
 
     In those times past, it was a given that if someone, some pair, made a "mistake", they were the only members of the clean-up committee.   And, quite frankly, the geezers among us, know that the girl was assigned the greater fault...responsibility...requirements...duties...whatever.   Boys were puppy dogs' tails and snails, pretty much incapable of self-control, whereas girls were sugar and spice and everything nice.   The girl had failed to protect her higher moral and cultural position in the pecking order of the greatest of the great apes.   So it was adoption or marriage.
     El Gringo Viejo knows of situations where one or the other occurred.  It gave the meddlesome Mrs. Bustlebuster something to talk about at the Beauty Parlour when she would point out that Mamie Jane married in August and the stork came in March.
   Likewise, the girls just home from college could all get together down at the old familiar pharmacy - soda fountain - diner.  They could talk and giggle and blubber a bit about  Suzie McPherson who "went off" and after a while delivered and "gave up" her baby.   Then they would all sit around, rustling petticoats, all six girls in a booth for four, and...for a bit...be quiet and pensive, looking around and avoiding looking at either friend or stranger in the eye.
 
 


 

 
    We have been in and around the issue since the time we moved from the 6th to the 7th grade.   But the rules, standards, expectations, and results have been changed to the core over the years.   While the devastation has fallen mainly upon the Black race in this country, the issue of the un-husbanded homestead affects every race and ethnic group to the core in this times.
     Almost every programme, network, radio talk show, and scores of other platforms have been able to point to social disintegration as the cause of the onslaught of gangs, zombie-youth, juvenile criminality, adult criminality, social anomie, inarticulate speaking and general ignorance, inability to defer gratification, and inability to think coherently or deductively or critically that have become the proud norm of the New Progressive American Culture.

     But the programmes and commentators seem willing to go to second base or to third base on the issue, but no one...and I mean no one....wants to say on the air what the solutions are.


The solutions are few, and they are simple.  To wit:

(1) Re-establish a benign sense of judgement.   Be  a forgiving and supporting presence for any girl who has stumbled.   Defend and seek revenge on the behalf of any girl who has been forced upon.

(2)  Abolish all public assistance.   The point behind females allowing themselves to be repeatedly impregnated is because it is their business.  They learn from grandma, mom, Auntie Cleo, from their sisters...the entire path that connects the WIC office to the AFDC office to the Food Stamp office to the Section 8 office, the Medicaid office.   To them the "rhythm system" is to whelp out approximately every 20 to 26 months for about 6 such intervals in order to have a steady income that even in poorest paying States will net about 30,000 USD in net value, per annum.   In some really pinko States the professional babymother can earn more in actual dollar value than the salary of that State's five-year veteran high school teacher.
     The girls learn how to sell their stamps when they need a little ready cash, and if they have a babydaddy, they know that he will have to take his share of any cash that is available. sometimes as much as 30% or more.  She knows that if she holds out, she will be roughed up, beaten, or even "evaporated".   Most frequently, a babydaddy will have from 3 to 20 babymothers that he keeps "serviced" so as to lard on another little AFDC free lunch card at steady intervals.    The more babies, the more "service fees" he will be able to collect, so long as some other potential babydaddy doesn't "evaporate" the first babydaddy.
     Ergo, to solve the problem....immediately stop central government allocations of money that does not exist being sent to the States to distribute to people who look upon said money as some kind of a paycheck for the hard work they do. The icy hand on the back of the neck will be a new sensation for the "hard-working" people whose profession is "being poor". 

       Advise the populace that there is no longer any public assistance.  Anyone in need will know to seek temporary help from private agencies.   The private agencies will have a slight up-tick in contributions because the productive populace will know and understand that a lot of addicts to public assistance are going to be transitioning from their public assistance fix to a new day of liberty from the bondage caused by such public assistance.   There will be a lot of withdrawal symptoms...cold sweats, chills, delirious tremens, hallucinations, paranoia, and the like.     Most will not be able to make the transition, and they will have to be supported with private assistance until their end.

(3)   The next stage is to advise the public that anyone, male or female, who brings forth a miracle baby twice, and expects the public to pay for those babies, will be whack-whacked (in the case of the male) or snip - snipped (in the case of the female).   The snipping and whacking are permanent solutions and afterwards, they can all live together as eunuch and eunuchess until the end of their days.   It will be called the "Programme for Reproductive Choice and Rights".
 
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     These measures will lamentably require almost 20 years to have a truly significant effect upon the multigenerational trudge to Hell that the public welfare system produces for poor minorities.   As the days increase, however, starting in earnest around the 10th year, there will be fewer problems in schools, fewer gang members, less litter, less graffiti, less violence, and a beginning of a slow, but increasingly solid return of "minorities" into the positive march to economic and spiritual prosperity.  It would help the majorities, the minorities, and the lesbian vegetarians, and the left-handed people with green eyes. 
 
This is the only way to save the Republic.  Any other approach is self-deception.   Please watch any three episodes of 48 Hours.  Please visit downtown St, Louis, Detroit, or Baltimore....or the downtown of any city in the northeast with a population of 250,000 or more.
 
     Public Assistance is not a safety net.  It is death.  It is decay,   It is vote buying with someone else's money.   It is putrid rot coming to take your children and grandchildren.
 
El Gringo Viejo
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Tuesday 27 August 2013

Painted into the Corner of a Labyrinth of No Return

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     El Gringo Viejo will be allowed to quote and reproduce by attribution from the prestigious Stratfor Report, which is famous for it analytics of various confrontations throughout the world, both of low and high intensity.   Our opinions and conclusions at times differ from the Stratfor assessment.   At other times we have substantial agreement with the evidence and conclusions drawn.  Then there are the times when we have concurrence or a mixture of concurrence and conditional agreement.
 
     That which is offered to the attention of the OROG to-day has a lot of concurrence. There is almost no disagreement. What is certain is that there is a mess throughout the whole of Africa north of the Sahara.  This is a gift from the always recalcitrant Euros who colonise, improve things a lot, and then turn tail and run at the first, second, or third uprising of those who want to "restore'' the sovereignty of their sacred soil.  The turning of tail is usually associated with the government in Paris, or Rome, or London, or Madrid, or Lisboa, or Amsterdam, or Brussels or some other Euro-type place deciding to try to remain in power by giving the dolts in their country free money, free medical care, free whatever....until of course it breaks the exchequer.
 
     The Empire collapses everywhere in the world, and the home country looks a little better than the day after World War II ended, but it is always painted in grey....the have nots always want more and forever resent the haves...and the haves further and  further isolate themselves leaving those countries to appear as fulfilments of the Orwellian image presented in 1984.
 
     The socialists and Marxists, and all the other hideous forms of the leftist panoply march to the tune of  La Internationale in their quest to establish the perfect human condition;   Whilst that side show is underway,  the various old colonies deteriorate into third-rate hell-holes that enjoy succession of pitiful, pompous dictators, who are always quick to criticise and blame any and every thing wrong with their countries on the Americans or the previous colonial holder of their country.   Ah!  Brazil.   At least for a while you held the throne of Lisbon in your territories, but alas to no avail.








     Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Egypt.....all tombstones in the resumes of Barack Hussein Obama and (Sir Edmund)Hillary with more to come.  Syria certainly and the Kingdoms of Jordan, perhaps even Morocco.  Before long it will all be a nihilistic cultural desert reverting to cannibalism if they have a little luck.   Just think of all Hillary has done for women and children.   Just think.

     Where El Gringo Viejo takes to a siding and allows the bigger train to pass us....it is a bigger train with more cargo, passengers, experience in military/political analytics and the like....it is in the assumption that Obama and his minders have any remote notion or concern about defending or even representing American interests in these or any world issue.   It is my certain and un-amendable assertion and belief that the chaos that Obama and his Soros-elitists minders have made, all of these messes, has been done purposefully.   It is why Obama has cut and run in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it is why he has consistently backed the Muslim Brotherhood at every turn.  It is why the Muslim Brotherhood has more access to the White House than Bebe Netanyahu.   He wants to demonstrate that the United States of America is a waning power, being brought down by the sins of slavery and racism and the notion that there is anything such as private property.

     The Stratfor analysis assumes that Obama is in there on the golf course trying his best to make the Rubik's cube work out on a win-win basis for all, and especially for his favourite Nation...the good ole' USA.    Such is not our assumption.



    
File:Rubiks Cube 1982 Hungary.jpg




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reprinted from the
Morning Stratfor Report
 

      Images of multiple dead bodies emerged from Syria last week. It was asserted that poison gas killed the victims, who according to some numbered in the hundreds. Others claimed the photos were faked while others said the rebels were at fault. The dominant view, however, maintains that the al Assad regime carried out the attack.

     The United States has so far avoided involvement in Syria's civil war. This is not to say Washington has any love for the al Assad regime. Damascus' close ties to Iran and Russia give the United States reason to be hostile toward Syria, and Washington participated in the campaign to force Syrian troops out of Lebanon. Still, the United States has learned to be concerned not just with unfriendly regimes, but also with what could follow such regimes. Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have driven home the principle that deposing one regime means living with an imperfect successor. In those cases, changing the regime wound up rapidly entangling the United States in civil wars, the outcomes of which have not been worth the price. In the case of Syria, the insurgents are Sunni Muslims whose best-organized factions have ties to al Qaeda.

Still, as frequently happens, many in the United States and Europe are appalled at the horrors of the civil war, some of whom have called on the United States to do something. The United States has been reluctant to heed these calls. As mentioned, Washington does not have a direct interest in the outcome, since all possible outcomes are bad from its perspective. Moreover, the people who are most emphatic that something be done to stop the killings will be the first to condemn the United States when its starts killing people to stop the killings. People would die in any such intervention, since there are simply no clean ways to end a civil war.

 

Obama's Red Lines

     U.S. President Barack Obama therefore adopted an extremely cautious strategy. He said that the United States would not get directly involved in Syria unless the al Assad regime used chemical weapons, stating with a high degree of confidence that he would not have to intervene. After all, Syrian President Bashar al Assad has now survived two years of civil war, and he is far from defeated. The one thing that could defeat him is foreign intervention, particularly by the United States. It was therefore assumed he wouldn't do the one thing Obama said would trigger U.S. action. 
Al Assad is a ruthless man: He would not hesitate to use chemical weapons if he had to. He is also a very rational man: He would use chemical weapons only if that were his sole option. At the moment, it is difficult to see what desperate situation would have caused him to use chemical weapons and risk the worst. His opponents are equally ruthless, and we can imagine them using chemical weapons to force the United States to intervene and depose al Assad. But their ability to access chemical weapons is unclear, and if found out, the maneuver could cost them all Western support. It is possible that lower-ranking officers in al Assad's military used chemical weapons without his knowledge and perhaps against his wishes. It is possible that the casualties were far less than claimed. And it is possible that some of the pictures were faked.
      All of these things are possible, but we simply don't know which is true. More important is that major governments, including the British and French, are claiming knowledge that al Assad carried out the attack. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made a speech Aug. 26 clearly building the case for a military response, and referring to the regime attack as "undeniable" and the U.S. assessment so far as "grounded in facts." Al Assad meanwhile has agreed to allow U.N. inspectors to examine the evidence onsite. In the end, those who oppose al Assad will claim his supporters concealed his guilt, and the insurgents will say the same thing if they are blamed or if the inspectors determine there is no conclusive evidence of attacks.
       The truth here has been politicized, and whoever claims to have found the truth, whatever it actually is, will be charged with lying. Nevertheless, the dominant emerging story is that al Assad carried out the attack, killing hundreds of men, women and children and crossing the red line Obama set with impunity. The U.S. president is backed into a corner. 
       The United States has chosen to take the matter to the United Nations. Obama will make an effort to show he is acting with U.N. support. But he knows he won't get U.N. support. The Russians, allies of al Assad and opponents of U.N.-based military interventions, will veto any proposed intervention. The Chinese -- who are not close to al Assad, but also oppose the U.N.-sanctioned interventions -- will probably join them. Regardless of whether the charges against al Assad are true, the Russians will dispute them and veto any action. Going to the United Nations therefore only buys time. Interestingly, the United States declared on Sunday that it is too late for Syria to authorize inspections. Dismissing that possibility makes the United States look tough, and actually creates a situation where it has to be tough.
 
 

Consequences in Syria and Beyond

      This is no longer simply about Syria. The United States has stated a condition that commits it to an intervention. If it does not act when there is a clear violation of the condition, Obama increases the chance of war with other countries like North Korea and Iran. One of the tools the United States can use to shape the behavior of countries like these without going to war is stating conditions that will cause intervention, allowing the other side to avoid crossing the line. If these countries come to believe that the United States is actually bluffing, then the possibility of miscalculation soars. Washington could issue a red line whose violation it could not tolerate, like a North Korean nuclear-armed missile, but the other side could decide this was just another Syria and cross that line. Washington would have to attack, an attack that might not have been necessary had it not had its Syria bluff called.
 
      There are also the Russian and Iranian questions. Both have invested a great deal in supporting al Assad. They might both retaliate were someone to attack the Syrian regime. There are already rumors in Beirut that Iran has told Hezbollah to begin taking Americans hostage if the United States attacks Syria. Russia meanwhile has shown in the Snowden affair what Obama clearly regards as a hostile intent. If he strikes, he thus must prepare for Russian counters. If he doesn't strike, he must assume the Russians and Iranians will read this as weakness.
 
       Syria was not an issue that affected the U.S. national interest until Obama declared a red line. It escalated in importance at that point not because Syria is critical to the United States, but because the credibility of its stated limits are of vital importance. Obama's problem is that the majority of the American people oppose military intervention, Congress is not fully behind an intervention and those now rooting the United States on are not bearing the bulk of the military burden -- nor will they bear the criticism that will follow the inevitable civilian casualties, accidents and misdeeds that are part of war regardless of the purity of the intent. 
The question therefore becomes what the United States and the new coalition of the willing will do if the red line has been crossed. The fantasy is that a series of airstrikes, destroying only chemical weapons, will be so perfectly executed that no one will be killed except those who deserve to die. But it is hard to distinguish a man's soul from 10,000 feet. There will be deaths, and the United States will be blamed for them.
 
     The military dimension is hard to define because the mission is unclear. Logically, the goal should be the destruction of the chemical weapons and their deployment systems. This is reasonable, but the problem is determining the locations where all of the chemicals are stored. I would assume that most are underground, which poses a huge intelligence problem. If we assume that perfect intelligence is available and that decision-makers trust this intelligence, hitting buried targets is quite difficult. There is talk of a clean cruise missile strike. But it is not clear whether these carry enough explosives to penetrate even minimally hardened targets. Aircraft carry more substantial munitions, and it is possible for strategic bombers to stand off and strike the targets.
 
     Even so, battle damage assessments are hard. How do you know that you have destroyed the chemicals -- that they were actually there and you destroyed the facility containing them? Moreover, there are lots of facilities and many will be close to civilian targets and many munitions will go astray. The attacks could prove deadlier than the chemicals did. And finally, attacking means al Assad loses all incentive to hold back on using chemical weapons. If he is paying the price of using them, he may as well use them. The gloves will come off on both sides as al Assad seeks to use his chemical weapons before they are destroyed.
 
     A war on chemical weapons has a built-in insanity to it. The problem is not chemical weapons, which probably can't be eradicated from the air. The problem under the definition of this war would be the existence of a regime that uses chemical weapons. It is hard to imagine how an attack on chemical weapons can avoid an attack on the regime -- and regimes are not destroyed from the air. Doing so requires troops. Moreover, regimes that are destroyed must be replaced, and one cannot assume that the regime that succeeds al Assad will be grateful to those who deposed him. One must only recall the Shia in Iraq who celebrated Saddam's fall and then armed to fight the Americans.
 
     Arming the insurgents would keep an air campaign off the table, and so appears to be lower risk. The problem is that Obama has already said he would arm the rebels, so announcing this as his response would still allow al Assad to avoid the consequences of crossing the red line. Arming the rebels also increases the chances of empowering the jihadists in Syria.
 
      When Obama proclaimed his red line on Syria and chemical weapons, he assumed the issue would not come up. He made a gesture to those in his administration who believe that the United States has a moral obligation to put an end to brutality. He also made a gesture to those who don't want to go to war again. It was one of those smart moves that can blow up in a president's face when it turns out his assumption was wrong. Whether al Assad did launch the attacks, whether the insurgents did, or whether someone faked them doesn't matter. Unless Obama can get overwhelming, indisputable proof that al Assad did not -- and that isn't going to happen -- Obama will either have to act on the red line principle or be shown to be one who bluffs. The incredible complexity of intervening in a civil war without becoming bogged down makes the process even more baffling.
 
     Obama now faces the second time in his presidency when war was an option. The first was Libya. The tyrant is now dead, and what followed is not pretty. And Libya was easy compared to Syria. Now, the president must intervene to maintain his credibility. But there is no political support in the United States for intervention. He must take military action, but not one that would cause the United States to appear brutish. He must depose al Assad, but not replace him with his opponents. He never thought al Assad would be so reckless. Despite whether al Assad actually was, the consensus is that he was. That's the hand the president has to play, so it's hard to see how he avoids military action and retains credibility. It is also hard to see how he takes military action without a political revolt against him if it goes wrong, which it usually does.
 
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 We hope that this treatise helps put things into focus for the OROG.   It is a horrid humanitarian situation, one that causes my pessimism to far outweigh any sort of optimism.   It was mishandled from the beginning by a poseur..not even a lightweight...who has never had even the remotest notion of what it would take to run a taco stand.    Come to think of it, the taco stand guy is a millionaire and billionaire in the making, so Obama would probably just demagogue him to death or tax him into the poor house.  After all there the taco stand guy can get stamps and Section 8.
 
El Gringo Viejo
 
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