As a pompous curmudgeon, El Gringo Viejo grouses about errors in grammar and spelling, demanding accuracy in each literary venue....while reserving to himself the right to spell words as he wishes (potatoe, tomatoe), or adopting archaic forms of spelling, or fading in and out of English and American approaches to spelling and structure. Part of that comes from having been raised on the Old Book of Common Prayer that came to me in the early 1950s from a place four hundred years before. Some of it comes from standing by my man, Dan Quayle, when he was ridiculed by fools for urging a child to change the spelling of the word "potato" to the more archaic or British form, "potatoe". Much of it, however, is just because El Gringo Viejo is a pompous curmudgeon and last born. Therefore he is endowed with the right to be self-indulgent and judgemental of others.
There is one place where his self-righteous wrath will flame forth in earnest, however, and that is in the area of the supercilious condemnation of the military when leftists, communists, and other anti-American interest like to strut their hypocritical stuff. To mix up a good marble cake, some of this also applies to the Mexican military, so stand by and I shall try to be brief.
The anti-Americans love to point out Abu Ghraib as a glowing example of what a horrid institution the American military is. It must be a horrid institution because it is American, right? And look, a terrible American Army sergeant has gone out and just shot up a bunch of poor Afghanis. And is it not a monstrous tragedy that the Army would go out of its way to burn books that are sacred to the Afghanis? What horror.
Little matter that the picture most often associated with the issue of Abu Ghraib was actually taken by Saddam Hussein's thugs to show family members of the person being tortured how he was being dealt with shortly before he was dropped into an electrified cauldron. The antics of our dumboes who were briefly in charge of the prison were not inspired human pursuits, but this author would warn all present that if such actions were offencive to the reader, not to presence the locker room of any sport before or after game or practise, or of most sororities and fraternities on or near any campus during the early parts of the first semester of any academic year.
And, yes, it is meant now, not a long time ago when people were meanies. Every now and then we are treated to some depravity or another that occurs on some campus or another in our fair Nation, but in the main....many, many, many rites and rituals, most of them absurd, are carried out upon the unfortunate inductees to this or that club or organisation annually.
There are no physical or emotional injuries, as dread changes over to a feeling of being included, after the poor inductee passes through whatever curtain has been placed before him/her.
As far as burning sacred books, the act was done as part of an order by a consulting imam who advised the Army that if the prisoners had used the books by writing upon them, especially for any singular personal use of purpose, the books had to be destroyed by fire. Always misreported. Even by FOX News.
While the act of firing intentionally upon non-combatants, specifically for the purpose of killing or wounding them is reprehensible, there has yet to be any press recognition of the fact that the people in the area affected have been increasingly allowing Taliban murderers to use the cover of the Afghani familial hovels built around the base. The cut-throat throw-backs to the 6th Century gain entrance by giving favours, or by intimidating, the occupants of the hovels that are located only a few hundred yards from the compound's edge. Insurgents had been using the hovels as snipers' nests for weeks before the incident by Sergeant Bales.
Once a guy has a head injury, and a foot blown off in combat, and is then returned to duty (why?), it is somewhat predictable that he might decide to do something foolish after a few beers. But, instead of being a stupid error on the part of the Army Medical Corps, it is put forth as a great example of how horrid Americans are and America is. Little matter that the Taliban's form of respect for other religions is to immediately blow up the ancient Cliff Buddhas that, to any intelligent person, were philosophically and religiously important, and an artistic and construction marvel (In a half-sane nation, could one even imagine the money, progress, and gladness of honest pursuit produced by maintaining the site for touristic, religious, and/or academic purposes?). Or, that it is a national sport in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and such places to play the time honoured sport of "Let's go blow up the other sect's mosque!" Another popular sport is "Shoot the pilgrims and blow up their daughters". The best one, however, is the bravery of driving a Nissan Sentra packed withy 900 pounds of explosives into a funereal procession. These sports have managed to kill more Iraqis and Afghanis than the efforts of the entire American military by several times over.
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| One of the Cliff Buddhas picture from 1976 |
Once a guy has a head injury, and a foot blown off in combat, and is then returned to duty (why?), it is somewhat predictable that he might decide to do something foolish after a few beers. But, instead of being a stupid error on the part of the Army Medical Corps, it is put forth as a great example of how horrid Americans are and America is. Little matter that the Taliban's form of respect for other religions is to immediately blow up the ancient Cliff Buddhas that, to any intelligent person, were philosophically and religiously important, and an artistic and construction marvel (In a half-sane nation, could one even imagine the money, progress, and gladness of honest pursuit produced by maintaining the site for touristic, religious, and/or academic purposes?). Or, that it is a national sport in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and such places to play the time honoured sport of "Let's go blow up the other sect's mosque!" Another popular sport is "Shoot the pilgrims and blow up their daughters". The best one, however, is the bravery of driving a Nissan Sentra packed withy 900 pounds of explosives into a funereal procession. These sports have managed to kill more Iraqis and Afghanis than the efforts of the entire American military by several times over.
The greatest killer of children in Afghanistan and Iran and Iraq are the madmen rulers and ayatollahs who have killed millions during their wars and purges. Even the Russians could not match their depravity. Really nice folks.
WHICH brings me to the main topic. El Gringo Viejo also monitors and lives inside of the events in Mexico. He witnesses the calls for "peace" and the "marches for peace" and the recriminations by the leftists against the present administration because of its offencive against the cartel vermin. It should be pointed out that some of the "Marches" are innocent of any motive beyond a call for sanity and peace. Some are out and out demands to surrender Mexico to something far, far worse than organised crime. Marches of the latter sort, such as around Apatzingan, Michoacan and a few other places have become markedly fewer in recent months.
Calderon, to his credit, knows that if something quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it really, really is The Devil. He knows that his popularity is neither here nor there. He must defend, establish, and re-establish Mexico. And, now the issue is drawing to something of a close. All those who stated over the last two or three years that Mexico is a failed state were fools. Mexico was a failed state from the time that the Constitution of 1917 began to be fully implemented from 1924 through about 1940. That is because that Constitution was largely an organic law document, not a constitution, and was solidly based upon an anti-religious, socialist imperative. It was a prescription for failure.
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| Porfirio Diaz Mori President of Mexico, 1875 - 1912 |
Coming back closer to the present, Carlos Salinas is much maligned, but he did begin to slay many of the Constitutional sacred cows that had kept Mexico mired in a statist private - public "partnership" of industry and commerce, and the automatic corruption of having only the "official" labour union, the Confederation de Trabajadores Mexicanos....a sure ingredient required even for a "soft totalitarianism". Full, measured, and stready conservative reform really went on a roll after the heated elections of 1994, and two conservative candidates actually won about 80 percent of the vote. It was determined that Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon of the old, official government party had barely won the election, and thus began the PRI's best moments. Those moments included increased privatisation and the opening of the election process up so as to make future elections as substantially less predictable. Those best moments also, thankfully, brought us the end of the automatic hegemony of the Partido Revolucionario Institutional.
Two successive conservative party (PAN) administrations have brought Mexico dangerously close to being a place that still cannot be described! So, in a way, with all the change, Mexico remains true to its motto..."Ay! Mexico! Como tu, no hay dos! (Mexico! That such as thou art, there are not two!).
But this returns us to the use of the military....the Ejercito (Army) and the Infantria Naval (Marines). It was ploughed into the disorders brought on by contentions between the several drug trafficking cartels. IT WAS NOT A WAR THAT WAS INITIATED IN ANY WAY BY MEXICAN AUTHORITY, military or civilian. It was thrusted upon Mexico by madmen who fought their battles on the streets, who slaughtered whole and extended families of opposing cartel members, who sequestered innocents so as to extract ransom to finance their operations when they had suffered losses, who terrorised and forced people with no way to resist to do the cartels' wishes.
The cultural plague was thrust upon Mexico, during the 1990s and gradually, like an aching tooth becoming worse and worse in the period around 2005 - 2006, when it became obvious that there was no way to avoid going to the dentist.
During this time, the Mexican military, the most highly regarded institution in Mexico, was enjoying upgrading, re-equipping, advanced training and general overall improvement like most public facilities, institutions, and organisations in Mexico under the new, less corrupt, Conservative governments. The military especially prospered because it had always been, more or less, very honest....at least to a 97% level. So it started off from a higher position, and forged on to greater "purity" and professionalism.
There were three or four glaring, structural breakdowns, such as the corrupt 65th Battalion, a fairly small unit, (for a batallion) operating in northern Sonora State below Arizona. During the 1990s and early 2000s, it was associated with collaboration with cartels and with American drug traffickers. Suddenly, one fine day, the two commanding general officers were vacuumed up and court martialed. One has since died while incarcerated, and the other remains in the main military prison, under semi-solitary confinement. All in all, there are slightly less than 700 prisoners, post-courts martial, in this facility. About 10% are officers, the rest are non-commissioned officers and lower ranking.
All of the original deserter sergeants who trained in special operations at Fort Bragg in the early 1990s, and became the nucleus of the notorious ZETA group, have been killed or incarcerated (almost all are dead).
This figure of 700 is for a military, naval and army, that is numbering an estimated 240,000 active effective soldiers and sailors. For the term of issue, since the year 2000, there have been 315,000 (app) combat and combat support personnel in honourable service to the Flag. This note: In Mexico, the air force is still integrated into the Army.
Complete casualty numbers are not released, but by summing up the military's own reports and observations made by reliable civilian observers, it is estimated that the military has lost 420, plus or minus, killed in combat or combat support during the past 12 years. The great majority of those have been in the last five years. Wounded warriors are harder to tabulate, but reasonable estimates seem to centre around 3,000 requiring more than three days' hospitalisation.
The point behind all of this is that the enemy we have fought and the enemy the Mexican military has fought has no RULES OF ENGAGEMENT. They have no scruples, no rules, no laws, no procedures, no sensibility concerning non-combatants, no concern beyond anything but self....the almighty, narcissistic, all-consuming self....
But effete, impudent Mexican leftists and effete, impudent American leftists trundle forth to moan about how the two military organisations are "causing" the violence, the civilian deaths and injuries, and are performing in a authoritarian and brutal way.....primarily because, according to theme, the personnel of those military groupings simply like to hurt people and brutalise them.
It is presumed that they prefer the imams and Taliban and cartel people who take children and dismember them and deliver the pieces back to the parents and the village from whence the children were kidnapped....just to show them who is in charge. By the hundreds upon thousands these activities have been conducted...and similar activities....in South America (less now in Colombia)...in Mexico and Central America....in almost every large city in America.....throughout Africa in the Christian/Muslim conflict zone, almost always by Muslim nutcases....and throughout Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and all such places that practise the fundamentalist rule of Sharia law. There are no courts-martial for those perpetrators. Nay, there are only rewards and congratulations for blowing a woman's head off at mid-field during a soccer game while the gathered crowd watches....after all, the woman had worn a green bhurka on Wednesday....what else were we to do with her?
FINALLY, so that all OROGs know, a reliable polling firm releases the results a few days ago. No press agency picks it up....not even FOX....and there are two questions of interest. One is "Do you like the war against the cartels that is being conducted by the Calderon Administration?" The answers come back, 74% no..... 15% yes, the rest have never heard of Calderon.
The other question is, "Should Calderon stop the military offensive against the cartels?" The answers come back, 70% no.....20%yes, and the rest are slumped over the bar...it's late, almost noon already.\
In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, I think the reasonable elements within the American populace recognise that Obama and his administration has bumbled and stumbled into a mess of their own making by announcing withdrawal dates and by ever-more-restrictive rules of combat. Obama, who loathes the military and American might as do the Clintons, is surprized that his fellow America-hating brethren have not taken the signal that we are leaving the field back to the slime who wish to remain mired in their Satanic, 6th Century sludge field, growing poppies and beheading heretics. It is time to leave and let them just kill each other. The sooner the world is rid of them, the better.
In the case of Mexico, most of it is worth saving, and Calderon is doing what is necessary, like the Orkin Man, to get rid of the counter-cultural vermin. This last "shopping season" of the two "Holy Weeks" associated with the Feast of the Resurrection, saw a quadrupling of the flood of Mexican shoppers. The Reason? The roads are 99.999% safe....the military is winning....busses are full....traffick is up....Wait a second...It's stopped raining....
El Gringo Viejo
