THE ECHOES OF A CRAVEN FOOL LINGER

It seems that the nasty and shameful legacy of Obama lingers yet on the US body politic. It took the Commander of Central Command to tell Turkey that unlike the spineless Obama administration, this one and the U.S. military have no intention of abandoning areas in northern Syria liberated by us and our allies to the non-existent mercies of the Turks. They may be NATO allies but they are no ally of ours.

Gen. Joseph Votel said the United States has no intention of withdrawing coalition forces from the northern Syrian town of Manbij, as Turkish leaders had demanded this weekend. As Turkish forces continued the assault on Afrin, the lead of U.S. Central Command on Monday urged Turkey and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, to recognize each other’s legitimate security concerns but focus on the common enemy of ISIS. 

Senior U.S. leaders across the government have been in constant talks with Turkish counterparts during the Afrin assault, saying that the U.S. recognizes Turkey’s problems with the Kurdish terrorist group known as PKK, but refusing to give up any territory liberated by the SDF, which include Kurds. 

“It’s not our intention right now” to pull back from Manbij, Votel said in Jordan on Monday. He spoke with two reporters traveling with him through the region, including into Raqqa and other parts of northern Syria.

I suspect that the Turkish military knows we'll destroy any attack on us with our air power and we won't give the Turks any room to launch the kind of cowardly sneak attack like they used on the Russians when they shot down a Russian Su-27 attacking ISIS. Erdogan might have to learn this at the expense of a number of Turkish military lives.

I think every military man in the West knows that we lost Turkey to islamic fanatics and won't see it reappear as a western democracy in our lifetime. President Trump knows it too and so does everyone who has been following developments in that place.

We'll know the truth when President Trump announces tonight that we are going to disengage from Turkey and shut down our operations in Incirlik air base and elsewhere in Turkey. To be honest, with the fall of Saddam and the destruction of ISIS, there isn't really any reason to continue to operate, such as we do, out of Incirlik and it's not like Turkey was ever an ally of ours. Some of us haven't forgotten that Turkey's response to our call to rally to US after 9/11 was formally met by Turkish refusal to permit us to use their territory in any way, shape, or form to attack or threaten Iraq's western and northern flanks during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

One has to wonder, just where was the Turkish military when ISIS was ruling the north of Syria and wiping out yet more Christians in yet another Turkish sanctioned holocaust of innocent people? All they had to do was cross the border back then and engage the enemy but I suspect we are all coming to understand that this conflict has become flash point for Huntington's Clash of Civilizations in the War of the West Against the Rest. Turkey hurried to line up on the anti-western side.

It's hard to blame them. They had the weak juice of Obama, Hillary, Kerry and the cowards running western Europe to serve as reminders of the danger of aligning one's country and nation with the weak and contemptible side in an existential war of civilization. However, the Turks chose poorly.

A GOOD PRESIDENT AND A GENERAL TOO

I read the Sunday New York Times, well, glance at it. I was amazed to find that the Book Review started out with a review of Ron Chernow's book, Grant and authored by no less than Bill Clinton. It appeared to be a fairly good review of the book and showed some familiarity with both Grant and what Chernow wrote. For those unfamiliar the New York Times Book Review, actually reading or skimming the reviewed book is done far less often than you might think and many of the reviewers just make stuff up or go with what they think they know about the subject at hand.

I did like one of the photographs included with the review. God only knows where it came from but see for yourself.

The unidentified men are clearly Russians. Who else hangs out with republicans?

I found that Grant in his own words was a good start to finding out more about the man. You can download his autobiography at: gutenberg press.

PARTING SHOTS

What do snowflakes call anybody they see carrying a gun while wearing a white sheet?  From The Strategy Page.

A SPRITZ OF DDT SOLVES THE PROBLEM

There is some concern about visiting Brazil for the Olympics this summer. I am not concerned. I will also not be attending the Games. As I read this article, it called to mind the easiest and most efficient means of getting rid of Zika before the Games. It really is as simple as spraying the province with DDT. Everywhere.

No more mosquitoes = no more Zika virus. It's ironic how this solution, hit upon by a number of brilliant physicians at the turn of the 19th century, resulted in little things like the Panama Canal. General Gorgas didn't concentrate on the virus anymore than people dealing with plague tried to conquer the virus. He, like them, focused on eradicating the disease vector.

Honestly, how hard is that?

Do not suffer a mosquito to live.

Except these. These are absolutely OK mosquitoes.

THE WORLD IN SLOW TIME

Rimini
by Rudyard Kipling

Marching Song of a Roman Legion of the Later Empire

When I left Rome for Lalage's sake,
By the Legions' Road to Rimini,
She vowed her heart was mine to take
With me and my shield to Rimini--
(Till the Eagles flew from Rimini--)
And I've tramped Britain, and I've tramped Gaul
And the Pontic shore where the snow-flakes fall
As white as the neck of Lalage--
(As cold as the heart of Lalage!)
And I've lost Britain, and I've lost Gaul,
And I've lost Rome and, worst of all,
I've lost Lalage!                      -

When you go by the Via Aurelia
As thousands have traveled before
Remember the Luck of the Soldier
Who never saw Rome any more!
Oh, dear was the sweetheart that kissed him,
And dear was the mother that bore;
But his shield was picked up in the heather,
And he never saw Rome any more!

And he left Rome,

When you go by the Via Aurelia
That runs from the City to Gaul,
Remember the Luck of the Soldier
Who rose to be master of all!
He carried the sword and the buckler,
He mounted his guard on the Wall,
Till the Legions elected him Caesar,
And he rose to be master of all!

And he left Rome,

It's twenty-five marches to Narbo,
It's forty-five more up the Rhone,
And the end may be death in the heather
Or life on an Emperor's throne.
But whether the Eagles obey us,
Or we go to the Ravens--alone,
I'd sooner be Lalage's lover
Than sit on an Emperor's throne!

We've all left Rome for Lalage's sake

DENIAL

It isn't just a river in Egypt. The map shows what Turkey wrought when it shot down a Russian fighter bomber over Syria. It is something to keep in mind when you read about people bleating for somebody to do something in Syria. What Russia still has in spades is the power to destroy and they are the last ruthless major power on the planet. These are the people who shoot down air liners in cold blood without hesitation or reservation and make no apologies.

Red denied air space in the S400 Air Defense System Envelope

NATO doesn't have any tanks. It doesn't have the British Army of the Rhine. The German Army is now a complete joke. None of the rest of NATO added together ever amounted to a modern American Brigade Combat Team. There is almost nothing left of NATO. In fact, in their stupid and pointless attack on Libya, NATO ran out of bombs and probably hasn't gotten around to replacing them yet. Here is the entire war-fighting structure of NATO ashore in Europe.* Seriously, this is all that remains of 7th Army, United States Army Europe, Supreme Headquarters European Theater.

US ARMY in EUROPE 2016. All that remains

Whenever you hear anybody 'threaten' to "kick Russia's ass", you really must ask them how they aim to do that thing. We used to have a near monopoly on airpower, but not anymore. As we hear talk of war and suggestions that maybe somebody ought to show those damned Russians the door, I trust they'll take it well if you counter by setting up a skype call on the spot with the Russians and showing them the door to their house.

It is interesting to hear of talk about how Turkey and some coalition is going to deal with the Russians if they get swamped by arabs fleeing other muslim terrorists in Syria. Turkey used to have a very fine early 20th century army. It has been unable to deal with the handful of turbulent Kurds in the east. I doubt it could handle any Russians at all and in the meantime, the hi-tech infrastructure of Turkey would start to vanish in puffs of smoke as long range cruise missiles slashed in unopposed from every compass direction.

Turkey created a situation that largely negated all air power over Syria and much of the region. In my world, we called this airspace denial. WE may not control the air but we can deny its use by others. This is what Turkey gave the Russians when they shot down that Russian plane bombing terrorists on the ground in Syria. Way to go, you Turkey.

*There are precisely two modern war fighting member countries in NATO and neither of them is currently ashore in Europe.

UNSAVORY TURKEY TRUTH

USA Today, a rather pointless and useless paper had an interesting view about the recent islamic caliphate bomb attack on the old caliphate. It wondered, rather obtusely, how this would affect our single most useless NATO ally.

Is Turkey next? The world should be very worried about how that question is answered. The twin bomb blasts in Ankara this past weekend — the deadliest incidents in the modern history of that NATO member and American ally — have all the hallmarks of Islamic State. And by expanding into Turkey, ISIL’s efforts to re-create the ancient Islamic Caliphate would be a dramatic uptick in the stakes and scope of an already expanding conflict.

The attacks come as Turkey is at risk of losing control of stretches of its border areas that have become highways into Syria for ISIL recruits from North Africa and Europe. The flow of jihadists and supplies allows ISIL to pursue its murderous effort to build and protect a new state on the territory of Turkey's neighbors.

The author of the piece misses the fact that Erdogan is no friend of ours or of the West and will be delighted to assume the mantle of the caliph reborn once he exterminates those troublesome Syrians and Iraqis who are letting the cat out of the bag. He's probably already worked something nice out with Putin in that regard.

In so far as Turkey's rights and obligations under the NATO Treaty, when has Obama ever upheld the law of the land? Name one single time when he stood by an ally of the United States. If Erdogan gives us any trouble we'll let him have the 4th Infantry Division to stiffen the Kurdish resistance to the Islamic State and, given the shabby way Turkey dealt with them last time, we'll send them overland from New Jersey so they don't have to worry about getting Turkish permission to get off the ships. It might take some time for them to cross the Atlantic. The Army is not likely to forget that Turkey refused permission for the 4th to land and assault Iraq from the north at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

We have probably had enough of 'moderate' islamic fanatics for awhile. Maybe about a century.

A LETTER TO JOSIE

I will bring it here. I always knew that the administration of the Smithsonian sucked but this made it really clear. I was mostly out of the country when the debate raged about displaying the plane that dropped the first atomic weapon. The link is well worth the time to read even if it doesn't conclude with the plane now on display way out by Dulles.

There aren't more than a handful of people that remember that I wore an Air Force uniform for two years. Airpower was the rule of the day back when I wore that uniform. We held those who fought from the air in high regard. Airpower was doctrine, tactics and operations. Later on, after signing up for something I may name later, I used to listen to guys talk about "warheads on foreheads." Every one of them was a staff pogue. Say what you will about Americans and their medals/ribbon culture. A pro can glance at the uniform of any serviceman and know a great deal about him/her. Unless he's a faker and oddly enough, a pro will figure that out very quickly.

At the 'fruit salad' level to a professional, it's not a confusing mass of tatter. It speaks volumes.

The thing I learned about air power back when I was expected to be a proponent of it, was that it included something called Effect By Obliviation of the enemy. Thousand bomber raids to drop incendiaries on cities in Europe and Japan could be matched by the delivery of a single bomb from a single bomber. That was progress! As it happens, there is no way that I could bring myself to wage that kind of warfare. My eyes precluded even navigator on a C-130 and made nuclear missile silo watch stander my only career path in the USAF. I walked away and upstairs to sign on with the Navy.

Growing up in places like Fort Sill and Fort Riley, there were school libraries and they appealed to little boys. To this very day I remember how crewmen were extracted from burnt Shermans and Matildas. A wire was required. War is necessary and required. Naked, unchecked atrocity is not, even if it hides it's guise under MAD.

I had an appointment at the VA the other day. Whenever I've gone there in the past I noted that it was packed with men who appeared to be just sitting there. My business was on the second floor and it's a bureaucracy, I went up and down the stairs from the main lobby 6 times. I really hate elevators.

Hey Bob!, do you need a push?"

Hi Bill, we missed you yesterday!

Hey bro, how's it going?

I started to pick up on the way the VA in my place is a community where old men at arms gather and just sit and talk. No booze, no whining, no complaining. It offers a place and it does offer a place.

Two weeks ago I was looking for a place. It was a place I remember most fondly. Fort Riley is its name. We had directions but we thought maybe the back gate would be open. Ultimately, I stopped and asked directions. This was an exit not quite, but just off I-70. I found the VFW and asked, how do I get to Fort Riley. At 2100 the VFW post at Fort Riley, in Junction City, had 5 men, my age, two bartenders and nobody else.

I'm a veteran of many foreign wars and I would never think of joining the VFW. I'm not sure why. I think maybe I'm not a joiner.

When I left as Operations Officer for a Group Staff I had just deployed all of our units to OEF, OIF for their third and fourth tours there. Active and Reserve units. 1ID had been there continuously in one way or another and at 2100, the VFW at that place mustered 5 men a wee bit older than me. I'm older than I thought I'd be but I thought there would be more guys at the local VFW. I suspect few of our generation are 'joiners.' Been there, done that.

I remember sitting overseas with a LT CEC who, "built shitters in Fullujah" swapping tales over a beer with a female LCDR CEC who ran convoys out of the FOBS to resupply the local fire bases with food, ammo and no beer. Watch some video of convoys blown up by IEDs and watch some video of Fallujah way back. I very much doubt they have any interest in joining the VFW either. In the olden days it only required a campaign medal to join. It was like it was taken over by big Army and they are death on beer and having a good time. Everybody knows that. They've probably arranged with the local law to stake out the place to catch any DUIs just as the Shore Patrol staked out the clubs in Treasure Island back in the days when we had a fleet base there.

It was amusing to visit Yongsan Main Post. I used to fly there 15 times a year from the west coast. I did that thing for about 6 years. It got old. As a navy man I would visit the Navy's club up at the top of the post. The place was always hopping, great food, great staff, free lunch, live bands, good movies and I don't mean just a few times, it was every single time I stopped by. There were 19 other clubs run by the Army at Yongsan where one could, sometimes, find an old sergeant drinking a beer under fluorescent lights in a giant empty, cold, echoing hall.

Maybe some day I'll check out the local VFW posts in MetroParkCentralis. Maybe. I wouldn't bet a donut on it.

REVELATION

This picture hung on my father's various office walls years throughout his years in the Army and even after he retired from the Army. It is undoubtedly still lurking somewhere in his basement. I didn't realize what it was because it was forever unlabeled but I ran across this item today and learned why the picture was there for so long. He was the Battery Commander.

Dak To, South Vietnam. An infantry patrol moves up to assault the last Viet Cong position after an attempted overrun of the artillery position by the Viet Cong during OPERATION HAWTHORNE.

A NOS FRERES D’ARMES AMERICAINS

This is a fascinating article and well worth reading. Don't worry, it's not very long.

(This is the main area where I'd like to comment. Anyone with a passing knowledge of Kipling knows the lines from Chant Pagan: 'If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white/remember it's ruin to run from a fight./ So take open order, lie down, sit tight/ And wait for supports like a soldier./ This, in fact, is the basic philosophy of both British and Continental soldiers. 'In the absence of orders, take a defensive position.' Indeed, virtually every army in the world. The American soldier and Marine, however, are imbued from early in their training with the ethos: In the Absence of Orders: Attack! Where other forces, for good or ill, will wait for precise orders and plans to respond to an attack or any other 'incident', the American force will simply go, counting on firepower and SOP to carry the day.

This is one of the great strengths of the American force in combat and it is something that even our closest allies, such as the Brits and Aussies (that latter being closer by the way) find repeatedly surprising. No wonder it surprises the hell out of our enemies.)

THE HINDMOST

You know exactly where you stand with the ruling class when they decide to import people known or suspected to be carrying a death dealing plague that nobody understands. Any sane person would question why they do it but any paranoiac knows.

I don't think they really care about you and everything they do slaps you in the face with it.

There is just one party that has spent the last 40 years polishing the "nothing to see, just move along" mantra and they pretty much got a lock on the 'peons don't matter' approach to ruling.

Some of my happiest younger years were growing up at Fort Riley. You won't find the graves of the thousands of soldiers that died in the camps around Fort Riley from the plague because a prairie fire ages ago burned all of the wooden grave markers. The graveyard was a pasture roamed by buffalo when I was a boy there. There was nothing to mark their passing. Like sailors, they vanished one day into the mist.

RARE VISITORS AT METROPARKCENTRALIS

We had a pair of CH-47s and a B-17 bomber at Burke Lakefront Airport this weekend. The Memphis Belle was here to offer people rides low and slow over the city. I suspect the helos were Guard or Reserve out of Pennsylvania.

PRIVILEGE

It comes late by design.

Who exactly attacked the beaches at Normandy?

Designed by men who believed in affirmative action.

Does it make you wonder?

D DAY IN FRANCE

It was the end of the Third Reich.

Even the kids knew it.

BECAUSE IMPORTANT

Maybe she could put a few more radios in the sash because important.

You know, maybe some plebe could be attacked and need to be rescued...somewhere.

WTF is it with all these radios officers wear these days?

WE'LL NEVER FIND ANYONE WHO CARES MORE

This whole thing seems about as contrived a witch hunt as ever we've had in politics.

This trip to the Firing Squad seems unseemly. We won't ever find anybody more committed to veterans than this man and he is a thousand times better than Togo West. Shinseki is forced to try to exert his will against a massive bureaucracy so iron clad it makes the State Department's crew of anti-American marxists look positively wishy washy. He can't fire, move or demote anybody since they have achieved the status of minor deity within the Civil Service Pantheon. He cannot even terminate their hierarchs and minor demons. Somehow, as with the administrators of USPS Hell, he must find a way to do good IN SPITE of the bureaucrats who make up 99% of the evil.

It's sad that it seems to take no effort at all to staff an organization with incompetent zealots and make it much worse but it is nearly impossible to do anything to make it better. A trip to your neighborhood DMV is all it would take to show how intractable some bureaucracies can be.

AMERICA'S BEST

Your average liberal or Congressman still believes that the Army is the failure's last resort. As it is:

With the United States drawing down its troop numbers from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the active duty prospects for a generation that grew up in the age of terror aren't apt to improve, say area recruiters and educators. As it is, about four of every five adults who seek to join don't qualify.

There is something fundamentally wrong with a society that cannot produce citizens who meet the minimum standards to serve in the Armed Forces. It's a telling sign of the future when four out of five young adults who want to serve, are turned away as not worthy.

What does society do with the young adults who cannot meet the Army's standards?

Never mind. Just forget I even asked.

A SEPARATE HISTORY

It makes one wonder about a "common core".

What was "common about"that?

I was formed overseas but it was a long time ago. We're mostly harmless. I miss the old divisions, but not this one.

DRONE SCHOOL

Sadly, this is the state of American journalism today. Breitbart.com of all media does this:

Even if the Pennsylvania National Guard has some very small soldiers, the "journalists" should know that nobody mans drones. Words mean things. To quote the immortal Mark Twain: "In addition to these large rules, there are some little ones. These require that the author shall:

12. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.
13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.
14. Eschew surplusage.
15. Not omit necessary details.
16. Avoid slovenliness of form.
17. Use good grammar.
18. Employ a simple and straightforward style."

NATO REALIGNMENT

As we pointed out several years ago, the United States has formally adopted the same stance as its NATO partners. It's not a very wide stance and it isn't one that will find sighs of admiration from outside observers but it is the new face of American anti-imperialism.

Rejoice World. You won't see Americans do anything like this again in your lifetime.

In another 3 years we'll be just like the rest of NATO and sit down and haggle over our 'fair share' of any future military adventures. It won't be about sending brigades, it will be over whether we send one or two companies and one or two helicopters.

I trust that the rest of the world has now seen what the implications have been since the fall of the Berlin Wall for taking back the rest of Europe. Any country that was once part of the Soviet Block remains part of the Soviet Block. A fight over Ukraine was never going to happen but neither is a fight over Poland or the Baltic countries.

As the object in the White House has now proven repeatedly to the former friends and allies of the United States, our interest in what happens outside the beltway has dropped to a low not seen since this flag flew over America and we kicked muslim ass in the Barbary Wars that ended in 1815.

If you don't see your star or bar on that flag, you better arm yourself.