Thursday, 6 March 2014

Do You all Remember Joe Wilson? "YOU LIE!!"

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Obama Promises Illegals: Obamacare Sign Up Info Won't Be Used for Deportation

Admits "prosecutorial discretion" on immigration has already stretched his "administrative capacity very far."

Attribution:   National Review
12:34 PM, Mar 6, 2014 • By DANIEL HALPER
 
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     You all remember that terrible, bad boy, Joe Wilson.   He is the one who had the bad taste to shout out "YOU LIE!" when Obama was delivering a Niagara Falls - load of bilge and lies during the State of the Union some years...it seems like five or six hundred years..... ago.   The one particular lie that Obama committed that cancelled Joe Wilson's restraint was the one about how illegal aliens would not have any access to the Obama Socialised Medicine Initiative (OSMI).   It was already known that there had been workshops set up to show people how to recruit illegal aliens and how to show them the "bunny trails" to follow so as to not have "trouble" later.
     While it might have been tres gauche to have blurted out, en voce forte, that the president of the United States of America was vomiting up mountain-lion sized hair-balls of mendacity....everybody knew...including Elijah Cummings, that Barry Soetoro was "growing his nose a bit (or a lot)".
 
     In a joint town hall with Telemundo and Univision, President Obama made a pledge that his administration will not use Obamacare sign up data to deport illegal aliens:
 



 
     "Will we hear from you a pledge, a personal promise, that the information provided in the registration process will not be used for deportation purposes in this country?"
 
     "Absolutely," Obama said, putting his hand down for emphasis. "It's true that the undocumented are not eligible [for Obamacare], that's how the law was written, but if you are a U.S. citizen or you have a legal presence in this country, you are eligible," he said. "And none of the information that is provided in order for you to obtain health insurance is in any way transferred to immigration services. So that's something we've been very clear about. If you live in a mixed status family, then the son who could potentially be eligible for the children's health insurance program or some other mechanism to get health insurance, he needs to be signed up. And the mother should not be fearful that in any way that's going to affect -- of course I understand the fear."
 
     Obama blamed Congress for deportations. And he said he has already stretched his "administrative capacity very far" by taking immigration actions using "prosecutorial discretion," but that he was "very confident that was the right thing to do."
 
     The president finished answering this question by saying, "So, for everybody out there who's in a mixed family, there is no sharing of the data from the health care plan in to immigration services. You should feel confident that if somebody in your family is eligible, you should sign them up."
 
     The questions were asked of Obama in Spanish and translated by an onsite translator.
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     This is total poppycock.  The only ones who could possibly be eligible on the basis of his scenario are anchorbabies, who are almost all, entirely, on Medicaid at this time.  The mothers are "legally" in the country as the only means of nurture and care for the anchorbaby.  For so long as the child is eighteen or younger, the mother is legally qualified to remain as the guardian/parent.   That is why they have a baby every two to three years, usually "miracle babies" because that way they pick up the extra AFDC and attendant Lone Star Card, WIC, Section 8 or public housing, Head Start Momma Wears a Muumuu All Day programme, utility subsidy, etc.
      It is an open invitation, without so stating, to any illegal alien who is presently using false, forged, or "accidental" documents to continue that practice, as well.   If those documents are working for whatever purpose, why jump off that wagon?
     His prosecutorial discretion concerning the anchorbabies and children brought into the United States illegally when they were minors is so full of caveats and legal nooks and crannies that they are not functionally useful to any permanent end.   There is also a time limit and fees that would be prohibitive to everyone except Jay Rockefeller.
      The attitude of the interviewers, who arrogantly sit and ask with incensed tones about what can be done to protect people from being disturbed in their comfort of receiving American largesse while hating the people who pay for it is so infuriating as to be psychologically difficult for this writer to process.   When the advocates of this degenerate state of affairs are quick to point out what hard workers the '' undocumented immigrant" are....they are talking about something that was very, very, very, common thirty years ago.   Now, it is a 50 - 50 at best.   And truth be told, most of the hard workers are here legally and they come and go with their work papers for certain seasons of work, or for certain major single projects, such as the cantera stone masons.
 
     The Democrat Socialist Party has turned all things noble into some hideous form of the new Gomorrah.  Obama is playing "pea under the walnut shell - which one?" with everyone.  His objective is to "fundamentally transform" America into a cultural garbage heap that looks more like central Detroit.  His goal is to destroy the nation in every little and large way possible.
 
More Later.
El Gringo Viejo
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San Antonio de Valero de Bexar - 6 March 1836 It is done. The Alamo is Lost.

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Wednesday, 6 March 2014


During these hours the fires ordered by Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna had almost stopped smouldering, almost finished consuming the remains of the Defenders of the Mission of San Antonio de Valero....known to the locals as..."la capilla de los Alamos"....the chapel of the Cottonwood.

 Colonel James Bowie

     Only one of the departed defenders was not thrown onto the common pyre. Juan Jose Esparza was the only person to be granted permission to be buried in Holy Ground, under Christian Rites. All the others were
immolated. Including David Crockett. Esparza was a close friend of James Bowie, the co-commander of the outpost. Esparza essentially snuck into the compound through a window, bringing his wife and children with him. That evening or the next day, he took to the defense of his very ill friend, Col. Bowie and bolstered him in the continuing arguments that he had with the childish and arrogant, 28 year old William Barrett Travis. 


File:Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna c1853.png
Antonio Lopez de
Santa Anna c. 1869
     Travis was Southern aristrocracy, of a sort. He also carried the rank of Lt. Colonel. He looked down his nose at the sometimes sober Bowie, who was famous as an alligator wrestler, dueller, gambler, and adventurer. Travis was cold, spoiled, arrogant, and as we say in the South, 'full of himself'. James Bowie was a man of Eastern Tennessee with considerable life experience in and around Southern Louisiana, especially New Orleans. He spoke Cherokee, and could read, speak, and write English, Spanish, and French, making him comfortable in any environment...low or high. All who knew him thought him given to flights of extreme chance in business, and perhaps being fascinated with risk. People say he invented the Bowie Knife, but that honor actually belonged to his brother Rezin Bowie.
When Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna ordered the Defenders burned in a commom pyre like dogs, finally even deciding to throw Bowie in with the rest, Juan Jose Esparza's brother, Francisco, a middle ranking officer in the Mexican force under the command of General Filisola, asked the Supreme Commander for permission to take Esparza's remains to be buried. That was the only one who received such permission. There were 17 known Latin Defenders, although there is a probability that some of Captain Juan Seguin's men were never rostered....meaning there may have been as many as 35 to 60 Latins....known as Tejanos. Impromptu volunteers would not have been out of the question because Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was extremely disliked by the people of Coahuila and Texas, Latin and non-Latin alike.
     Bowie, however, is an interesting element among the Texian Forces. Some think he was afflicted with tuberculosis, others say he was fighting the residual effects of a bout with typhoid. Others say that he was struck hard by the death of his fiancee' in Mississippi some years before....and then after a very successfull marriage ...which had financial and emotional depth into a pre-eminent San Antonio - Monclova - Saltillo based Spanish/Mexican family it all happened again. A cholera epidemic swept through Texas in 1832, so Bowie sent his wife, children, and several of his in-laws to Monclova to wait out the plague in the healthier, drier, and higher air. They all died   
Lt. Col. William
 Barret Travis
when the cholera broke out there.

So, there is reasonable speculation that Bowie, although relatively young and very accomplished, decided that he had a better place to be than on this Earth. From the time after the death of his family, he had taken to drink and, while still gregarious and friendly and popular among the people in and around San Antonio, he was obviously a man with a wounded heart and soul. He would not be the kind of man one would want in charge of a military garrison.
     So you have Bowie, the Mexicanized fighter for the Constitution of 1824, and Travis who really did not like the Latins and their peculiar brand of Christianity. Bowie has a Latin friend who essentially comes into the Alamo to die with and for his Anglo friend. Then we have Travis turning to Captain Juan Seguin, a brilliant Tejano army officer, largely self-educated and self-trained,  who hated Lopez de Santa Anna to ride out for re-enforcements, because Seguin was the only one who knew enough about the lay of the land and the populations to be trusted with the job.


     Imagine Captain Juan Seguin riding to find Col. Fannin in order to bring him and his 350 men to the Alamo's defense. He finds that Fannin's group has been captured and detained at Victoria, near the coast, and all were soon to be lost to four methodical firing squads.




   (A couple of weeks later,General Urrea would ride back from a forward scouting to find that lesser officers have ordered the execution of all the prisoners, some 300 men, according to the orders of Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana. Urrea is furious, because he knows well the rule of "if we do it, then they will do it ten times over". But, the damage is done.)

File:Juan seguin.jpg
Capt. Juan Nepumecino
Seguin
     Seguin rides back to San Antonio to find that upon his arrival, the Alamo is fallen, all is lost. He continues then to the east, looking for Burleson or Houston or Austin or anyone. He finds Mrs. Dickenson and her baby and the Negro slave, Man Joe, a other mainly women and children refugees. He arrives to meet with Samuel Houston and to confirm that Fannin, Bowie, Travis, and Crockett are all gone. Along with almost 500 regular and irregular militia. Although he is a trained artilleryist, Seguin goes on to command the Texian cavalry at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto, where he and the Texian forces destroy Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's headquarters command of some 1,800 men, through a Washington-like attack on a Holy Day...a Sunday...21 April 1836.
      Lopez de Santa Anna had brilliantly conducted an Army and Naval attack, 1,000 miles away from his point of origin, moving three large corps of combined military force, cavalry, infantry, and artillery over deserts, mountains, cold, snow, and rain, encountering the enemy on frequent occasion and winning a succession of 24 straight engagements. In every engagement the Texians had been beaten badly. And then he camped with his main force on a swampy peninsula, surrounded by water, with no exit. The carelessness of arrogance.
     Finally, consider the Yucatecan Infantry, earlier this morning, the 6th of March, 1836,  before sunrise. They were put at the front of the attack group, attached to the 2nd Batallon de Zapadores, Ingenieros de Combate. To them it was a form of punishment as Yucatecos, because that province had declared itself allied with the forces supporting the Constitution of 1824. Lorenzo de Zavala (a Yucateco aristocrat) had written that Constitution and Lopez de Santa Anna knew de Zavala was taking refuge in Texas. So, the Yucatecan soldiers lay in the heavy wet snow that morning before sunrise, then became exasperated with their suffering, finally rose up and began the attack before the bugle call, that would leave 182 - 225 Defenders dead within the next 2 hours, and a minimum of 400 Mexican soldiers dead, and as many as 225 more dying of their wounds over the next two months.

     All of this defence and offense over a place that was neither worth defending nor assailing in military terms. The brother-in-law of Lopez de Santa Anna, Gen. Perfecto de Cos declared, "Con una victoria mas como el este, perdieremos no solo la guerra, pero quizas el pais. (With another victory like this, we should lose not only the war, but perhaps even the country).
     From an event that lasted for a little less than a month, that involved directly less than 3,000 men, there are a million stories and angles, points of view, and tidbits that will continued to the analysed, talked about, studied, and frequently misunderstood for the next one thousand years.....or more. To be sure, we shall, and our progeny shall, Remember the Alamo.

Thanks for your attention. Please.....Remember the 6th of March 1836.
El Gringo Viejo

Wednesday, 5 March 2014

The Battle Begins and Ends with Us

PRAY FOR THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS.
 
PRAY FOR THE HEALTH OF OUR SISTERS, the United States of America WHO ARE POOR IN SPIRIT AND IN HEALTH.
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Greg Cote's photo.


PRAY FOR THOSE WHO COME AFTER AND WHO WILL CONFRONT THE DEBT.
 AND PRAY FOR THE  MILLIONS OF DEPENDENT PEOPLE WHO HAVE BECOME, AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE, A MENACE TO THEMSELVES AND SO MANY OTHERS
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This presentation is always worth the listening.  The marvel of the talent and discipline speaks volumes about the human capacity and spirit.  It is something unseen, but very real.


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     Certain factual errors in this clip notwithstanding, we present this clip in deference to those few who stood against so many during these very hours, about 180 years ago, right now.   The central part of the battle had been joined.  In less than forty eight hours, the bodies of all defenders save one, will have filled the hills and meadows surround San Antonio with smoke from their immolation.    Preliminary gestures and probes.  One assault in force, which had been repulsed, and the realisation that, unless reinforcements were to miraculously appear, the outcome had been settled.   The only thing left would be the body count.   The last scene with Mrs. Dickenson leaving with her daughter and the Negro boy...was actually quite a number of female survivors and their children, mainly Tejano people...Latin relatives of the Spanish-surnamed who died their defence of the Fortress along with wives and children of a few of the other men who died in the fight.  The Negro boy was actually a slave adult, named Joe, who eschewed a guarantee of emancipation offered by Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Presidente Generalissimo de Mexico, and chose instead to abide by his duty and deliver Mrs. Dickenson and other women and their children to the East....to some unknown destination.   They would meet up with Juan Sequin a couple of days later, near Gonzalez, where Sequin would learn from "Joe" of the disaster at San Antonio de Bexar, at a place known as La Mision de San Antonio de Valero del Alamo (the Mission of the Cottonwood Tree).

     The word "Valero" is a formal locational name...such as Brighton or Hamburg in English or German.  Valero is obviously Hebraic Spanish, from the Extramadura...(southeastern part of Spain)...and probably means something akin to "wealth-producing place"...or a man who works in jewellery or wealth...or who sells things of value or substance.  Almost certainly, however, this application of the word "Valero" in the name of San Antonio de Bexar refers to a community of that name back in Spain.   Almost certainly the patron saint of Valero in Spain would be Saint Anthony.
 
The Queen of the Missions of San Antonio
Mision San Jose, still in use to this day, in
 celebrationof masses, weddings, funerals,
 and other rites of the Roman
 Catholic Church.
 
     Other Spanish Colonial epoch churches and missions in the San Antonio area are the Mision San Francisco de la Espada, Mision San Juan Capistrano, Mision de la Santissima Concepcion,  and Mision San Jose.  Not too far away are the Mision Sen~ora del Espiritu Santo de Zun~iga, and the Mision Santa Cruz de San Saba.  Being first built (1716), and the most decrepit, the Alamo was used primarily as a warehouse, granary, and food processing and storage.
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Contemplations and Honours to one of the Top Ten of Texas

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Col. Juan N. Seguin
Colonel Juan Nepomuceno Seguin's
Alamo Defenders' Burial Oration
delivered in San Antonio
25th February 1837

Eulogy published in the 
Telegraph and Texas Register
of Columbia (later Houston), Texas April 4, 1837
 
 
"Companions in Arms!! These remains which we have the honour of carrying
 
 on our shoulders are those of the valiant heroes who died in the Alamo.
 
  Yes, my friends, they preferred to die a thousand times rather than submit
 
 themselves to the tyrant's yoke. What a brilliant example! Deserving of being
 
 noted in the pages of history. The spirit of liberty appears to be looking out
 
 from its elevated throne with its pleasing mien,  pointing to us, and  saying:
 
 "There are your brothers, Travis, Bowie, Crockett, and others whose valour
 
 places them in the rank of my heroes." Yes soldiers and fellow citizens, these

 are the worthy beings who, by the twists of fate, during the present campaign

 delivered their bodies to the ferocity of their enemies; who, barbarously
 
 treated as beasts, were bound by their feet and dragged to this spot, where
 
 they were reduced to ashes. The venerable remains of our worthy
 
 companions as witnesses, I invite you to declare to the entire world, "Texas
 
 shall be free and independent or we shall perish in glorious combat."
 
Colonel Juan N. Seguin, Commandant
San Antonio, Bexar, Texas
Army of the Republic of Texas
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     The term, Alamo de Parras, meaning "Cottonwood Tree of the Grapevines" was appropriate to the area at the time, and was one of the steadily evolving common, vernacular names of what would later become San Antonio, Texas. Almost all the barely spring-fed creeks in that area of Central Texas have stands of cottonwoods right up to the creek's edge.  Then there are large cypress trees, along the standard flood line, and then walnut and pecans, growing wild, and backed by bramble and low growth.   This low growth and the middling high trees would almost always be draped with skirts of wild mustang grapes that were used by Indians and then by the Spanish colonists for the making of a pretty fair wine.  Mustang grapes can be adapted, after some effort, to a predictable husbandry, and they seem to enjoy the extremes of climate provided by Central Texas...very hot, very cold, very dry, very wet. Crummy rocky soil, but what there is can be very, very fertile is another characteristic of the geography of the area around the Balcones Escarpment, upon which San Antonio is situated.
          The Sequin family was ensconced in the Walnut Springs Creek area, about 28 miles to the east of "downtown San Antonio" and they were  well known in the San Antonio community.   Juan's mother was from the very prominent Becerra family that had lived in and around San Antonio, as ranchers, for four generations.   That was no mean task for those days. (As an aside, Becerra translated to the English means "heifer".)
     After the establishment of an independent Mexico during the 1821 - 1822 period, various of the elements of previous Spanish military and civilian order simply took up their morning chores and military and civilian duties as the only source of stability and continuity in the northernmost outpost of the new nation's northeasternmost extensions.
    Juan Sequin would become a fixture there and in adjacent places called La Bahia del Espiritu Santo  and Goliad (The Bay of the Holy Ghost and Goliath) near what is in a triangle bounded by Goliad - Victoria - Central Gulf Coast of Texas.   His social life would forever intertwine him with the names of Gonzalez, Navarro, and especially Zaragoza that were prominent in that area and also to a lesser extent up to and near San Antonio de Bexar.   He married in 1825 at the age of 19....was known to be a literate person...a musician...and a hard worker.
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ACCOMPLISHMENTS
of a 
True Texas Hero
 
1834 - - Appointed Territorial Governor (Jefe Politico) of Texas.
 
1834 - - Being the first to organize opposition to Gen. Santa Anna by preparing a circular inviting citizens to take part in a Texas Constitutional Convention.
 
1835 - - Appointed to the rank of Captain in the Texas Army by Commander and Chief Stephen F. Austin: Captain Seguin recruited fighters to defend against the invasion of Santa Anna's army; Juan Seguin personally provide his own troops with horses, food and shelter.
 
1835 - - Battle of Gonzales erupted over possession of a cannon wanted returned by Mexican troops; Gonzales citizens challenged the troops to "Come and Take It." They then used it to fire the first shot of the Revolution.
 
1835 - - Juan Seguin fought alongside Jim Bowie in the Battle of Concepcion; then rushed to join the Grass Fight south of San Antonio in an effort to slow the pace of Centralist forces coming to establish a non-representative government.
 
1835 - - Siege of Bejar - Captain Seguin with his 160 Tejano ranchers and Texas volunteers attacked Gen. Perfecto de Cos troops then in control of San Antonio in a crucial battle that signaled no turning back by Texas freedom fighters.
 
1836 - - The advance guard of Santa Anna's troops was sighted near San Antonio which alerted the small detachment of defenders to quickly regroup on the grounds of the Alamo: Once there, the small unit of Texans immediately prepared their defense of the mission against the attacking troops of Gen. Perfecto de Cos that were soon to be dramatically increased by the much larger forces of General Santa Anna.
 
1836 - - The Siege of the Alamo commenced; Captain Seguin defended the mission alongside Crockett, Travis, and Bowie until ordered by Colonel Travis to break through Mexican Centralists' Army's lines in search of additional Texian troops.
 
1836 - - The Fall of the Alamo occurred while Captain Seguin was following his orders to ride to Goliad in search of reinforcements from the troops of Colonel Fannin.
 
1836 - - He next rushed to warn and help defend Texas citizens fleeing from the path of the Mexican Centralist Army during the ensuing Runaway Scrape.
 
1836 - - Captain Seguin commanded the  Cavalry Company  of the 2nd Regiment during the Texians' victory over Santa Anna Army at San Jacinto; soon after that brief struggle, he was ordered by General Sam Houston to enforce the orderly withdrawal ofGeneral Lopez de Santa Anna's troops from Texas.
 
1836 - - Captain Seguin with his army re-entered San Antonio to accept the surrender of the Mexican Centralist forces there under the command of Lt. Col. Francisco Castaneda, the same officer involved in the opening skirmish over the cannon at Gonzales.
 
1836 - - He was promoted to the rank of Lt. Colonel by Republic of Texas President David Burnet, who expressed special trust in the courage, patriotism, and ability of Juan N. Seguin.
 
1837 - - He successfully appealed to his friend, Sam Houston, to rescind a prior military order to destroy San Antonio by fire, thus earning Colonel Seguin the respect for saving that city.
 
1837 - - Ordered by Sam Houston to bury the remains of the Alamo defenders, Colonel Seguin provided the martyrs with a Christian burial including full military honours.
 
1839 - - Senator Juan N. Seguin presented a bill that established a mail route from Austin to San Antonio.


1839 - - Colonel Seguin was honored by the citizens of Walnut Springs who voted to change the name of their community to Seguin because of his service to Texas during its heroic struggle for Independence.
 
1837 - 1840 - - The Biographical Directory of the Texas Conventions and Congresses states that Juan Seguin was an elected member of the Senate of the Republic of Texas 2nd, 3rd and 4th Congresses; Senator Seguin's legacy includes his strong leadership for adoption of a bill requiring all of the Laws of the Republic of Texas to be written in both English and Spanish. Senator Seguin held high his views that the Republic's law should protect all citizens and that there can be no doubt as to the rights an individual enjoys, and equally important what his responsibilities are, as a citizen of Texas.
 
January 19, 1840. Austin was selected as the official capital. Col. Seguin was on the joint Senate and House Committee to select the site for the Capitol of Texas which was named for his bosom friend Stephen F. Austin, It is related that the committee killed buffalo for their food while camped to locate the site for the capital of Texas.
 
1841 - - Juan Seguin is elected Mayor of San Antonio.
 
1842- - After considerable harassment by newly arriving, mainly German settlers, coupled with death threats against his family, Seguin leaves to Mexico, and resides in the Rio Grande area with relatives, from Laredo to Reynosa.  He is arrested and given a choice between being jailed for treason against Mexico or serving in the Army against Indian depredations and possible Texian counter-offensives.   He joins the Army and winds up serving in the Christmas Battle of Mier, where Gen. Pedro Ampudia and Seguin defeat a Texian force after a two-day battle, known in Texas as "The Black Bean Expedition".  Later Seguin served in the Mexican defence in front of American Generals Taylor and Worth during their march to Monterrey in the Mexican War of 1847-1848.
 
1850- -Seguin returns to Texas and is restored to his possessions and rights of citizenship.  He returns to business as usual.
 
1852 - - Won election as Bexar County Justice of the Peace; re-elected for a second term two years later.
 
1869 - - Elected Wilson County Judge.
 
1874 - - Juan Seguin was declared a hero of the Texas War for Independence by the Texas Legislature and provided a lifetime pension by the state.  With this pension, his age, and complications during the 10 years of Military Governor Edmund Davis's brutal Reconstruction administration, and due to his bad treatment because of his service to the Confederacy as a elected civilian officer and as a reserve officer in the Partisan Rangers, Juan decided to return back to his remaining relatives in Laredo.   He would return to visit various friends at times, but spent his remaining days writing his recollections, explaining his life's decisions to people who wrote or visited him, and living comfortably with his assets and his Texas pension for service during the War against C. Gen. Presidente Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, (war criminal extraordinaire)  and the Mexican Centralists, the majority of whom were patriots in their own wrought and right, doing a job they felt needed be done.
 
1890 - - Juan Seguin dies in Laredo, Tamaulipas at the age of 84.
 
1974 - - The remains of Juan Seguin, Hero of the Battle of San Jacinto, are returned to Seguin, Texas and interred with all honours, and to this day his Spirit receives visitors from friends, relatives, and those interested in the life of this brave...and in ways at times hard to understand...and very loyal Friend of Texas.
 
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    This is enough to digest.  It depresses, as well as inspires, as well as comforts an old Texan to know that there was another fellow who was dealt some hands whose cards had a lot of low numbers.  But he was very much a man of honour....who protected his family first....and always considered himself a Texan.  I bear no rancour against him, only respect and a preference that all should deal with his life and legacy in a positive way.   He truly was integral in the 13 Days of Glory, and the 22 minutes of retribution that would take place a month and three weeks after the Fall of the Alamo, in a place called San Jacinto.
El Gringo Viejo
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Tuesday, 4 March 2014

One of many friends...but these words are especially valuable to El Gringo Viejo

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     This is an especially pleasant note from a fellow traveller on the Anglican Curmudgeon's blog.  She is an earnest and positive critic of A Gringo in Rural Mexico, a great-great-grand niece of William Barrett (Traverse) Travis, and a much less wordily expressed analyst of the American Condition than your humble servant.
     I have concurred or agreed with every contribution she has made both here and at the Anglican Curmudgeon's blogsite.   At this moment, she has wandered over to underscore the accuracy of our reporting and recounting here.  The failure to encounter the weapons of mass destruction by the American and Allied Forces in Iraq was a joyously reported matter that proved beyond doubt to those of low intellectual ability that "George Bush Lied, and People Died".  Of course, it also proved to be valuable ammunition to the elite, obsolete media that would rather have an anti-Republican story than the Truth anytime.
 
     The only problem is that during the beginning stages, just before and right at the beginning of the hostilities, there were reports, even in the Obsolete Press that convoys of very heavy transport trucks were being waved through Syrian border checkpoints.   Speculation, informed rumour, deductions made by arms specialists and military analysts, were reported for two or three days.   I recall one report that suggested that the Americans knew about the convoys from their aerial reconnaissance but it was thought that Bush wanted to avoid widening the theatre of the War by giving Syria an excuse to joins arms with Hussein.   Although Bashir Assad and  Saddam Hussein were enemies of a sort Hussein had demonstrated that he would entrust Iraqi assets with his enemies, as when he sent his feeble air force group over to Iran during the War to Liberate Kuwait.  About sixteen poorly maintained fighters made to Iran at that time.
 
 
     In any regard, our friend sent this brief note, a kind of testimony in El Gringo Viejo's defence, just to let me know that I have not been dreaming or inventing the story about the truck convoys to Syria.
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On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 3:34 PM, Xxxxxx Xxxxxx <noreply-comment@blogger.com> wrote:
Xxxxxx Xxxxxx  has left a new comment on your post "MSNBC'S MADDOW BLAMES BUSH FOR MESS IN THE UKRAINE...":

I am a TV news (and C-Span) junkie. I clearly remember, just prior to US forces invading Iraq, seeing several aerial coverage of convoys of Iraqi trucks crossing the Syrian border, and TV commentators saying the suspicions were they were moving the weapons (of mass destruction).
Strangely, when none were found within Iraq, the story changed to "they never existed", and the convoys were never mentioned again.

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Posted by  Xxxxxx Xxxxxx
 to A Gringo in Rural Mexico at 4 March 2014 15:34
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          Her transmission jogged my memory, because in truth, there were fairly lengthy, very low level filmings of the convoys...some tractors pulling trailers with triple rear axles....and everything neatly canvas-covered and roped-down in a fairly orderly manner.   It was almost as if the "fly-overs" were being done by those small helicopters or fixed-wing single-propeller observation planes used for forward infantry reconnaissance.
 
     So.   I know the truth was being told through my good offices, but this transmission from our friend at the Anglican Curmudgeon reassures that the OROGs can have sounder faith that it was not a dream that produced those convoys to Syria.
 
Many thanks to our contributor!
El Gringo Viejo
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