U.N. SMALL ARMS TREATY

This treaty intends to ". . . ban the trade, sale and private ownership of all semi-automatic weapons." The right to self-defense - a basic human right - is codified in our Constitution as the right to own firearms. Not simply hunting or sporting pieces, either. The 2d Amendment addresses a specific requirement:


A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.


This means American citizenry are allowed the right to arm themselves with military-style firearms, which since the mid-twentieth century specifically means semi-automatic rifles and pistol.




Ever since Obama came into office, gun sales are up.


This sentiment is so strong in America, that liberals who abhor guns seek to have themselves portrayed as pro-hunter when running for the Presidency.




What a doofus - this Liberal didn't fool anyone.




More well known for something that rhymes with duck - for awhile, this Liberal fooled everyone.


Efforts by anti-gun liberals are dangerous to American sovereignty, and any politician who supports the United Nations “Small Arms Treaty” should be run out of office, and quite honestly, the country.


Larry Bell from Forbes has written an op-ed piece about the United Nations “Small Arms Treaty”:



U.N. Agreement Should Have All Gun Owners Up In Arms
Jun. 7 2011 - 2:04 pm

It may not come as surprising news to many of you that the United Nations doesn’t approve of our Second Amendment. Not one bit. And they very much hope to do something about it with help from some powerful American friends. Under the guise of a proposed global “Small Arms Treaty” premised to fight “terrorism”, “insurgency” and “international crime syndicates” you can be quite certain that an even more insidious threat is being targeted – our Constitutional right for law-abiding citizens to own and bear arms.






What, exactly, does the intended agreement entail?

While the terms have yet to be made public, if passed by the U.N. and ratified by our Senate, it will almost certainly force the U.S. to:

Enact tougher licensing requirements, creating additional bureaucratic red tape for legal firearms ownership.

Confiscate and destroy all “unauthorized” civilian firearms (exempting those owned by our government of course).

Ban the trade, sale and private ownership of all semi-automatic weapons (any that have magazines even though they still operate in the same one trigger pull – one single “bang” manner as revolvers, a simple fact the ant-gun media never seem to grasp).

Create an international gun registry, clearly setting the stage for full-scale gun confiscation.

In short, overriding our national sovereignty, and in the process, providing license for the federal government to assert preemptive powers over state regulatory powers guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment in addition to our Second Amendment rights.






Have no doubt that this plan is very real, with strong Obama administration support. In January 2010 the U.S. joined 152 other countries in endorsing a U.N. Arms Treaty Resolution that will establish a 2012 conference to draft a blueprint for enactment. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged to push for Senate ratification.

Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton has cautioned gun owners to take this initiative seriously, stating that the U.N. “is trying to act as though this is really just a treaty about international arms trade between nation states, but there is no doubt that the real agenda here is domestic firearms control.”

Although professing to support the Second Amendment during her presidential election bid, Hillary Clinton is not generally known as a gun rights enthusiast. She has been a long-time activist for federal firearms licensing and registration, and a vigorous opponent of state Right-to-Carry laws. As a New York senator she ranked among the National Rifle Association’s worst “F”-rated gun banners who voted to support the sort of gunpoint disarmament that marked New Orleans’ rogue police actions against law-abiding gun owners in the anarchistic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

President Obama’s record on citizen gun rights doesn’t reflect much advocacy either. Consider for example his appointment of anti-gun rights former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels as an alternate U.S. representative to the U.N., and his choice of Andrew Traver who has worked to terminate civilian ownership of so-called “assault rifles” (another prejudicially meaningless gun term) to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Then, in a move unprecedented in American history, the Obama administration quietly banned the re-importation and sale of 850,000 collectable antique U.S.-manufactured M1 Garand and Carbine rifles that were left in South Korea following the Korean War. Developed in the 1930s, the venerable M1 Garand carried the U.S. through World War II, seeing action in every major battle.






As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama was an aggressive advocate for expanding gun control laws, and even voted against legislation giving gun owners an affirmative defense when they use firearms to defend themselves and their families against home invaders and burglars. He also served on a 10-member board of directors of the radically activist anti-gun Joyce Foundation in Chicago during a period between 1998-2001 when it contributed $18,326,183 in grants to anti-Second Amendment organizations.






If someone breaks into your home when you are there, which would you prefer to have close at hand: 1) a telephone to call 911, or 2) a loaded gun of respectable caliber? That’s a pretty easy question for me to answer. I am a long-time NRA member, concealed firearms license holder and a regular weekly recreational pistol shooter. And while I don’t ordinarily care to target anything that has a mother, will reluctantly make an exception should an urgent provocation arise. I also happen to enjoy the company of friends who hunt, as well as those, like myself, who share an abiding interest in American history and the firearms that influenced it.


There are many like me, and fewer of them would be alive today were it not for exercise of their gun rights. In fact law-abiding citizens in America used guns in self-defense 2.5 million times during 1993 (about 6,850 times per day), and actually shot and killed 2 1/2 times as many criminals as police did (1,527 to 606). Those civilian self-defense shootings resulted in less than 1/5th as many incidents as police where an innocent person was mistakenly identified as a criminal (2% versus 11%).

Just how effectively have gun bans worked to make citizens safer in other countries? Take the number of home break-ins while residents are present as an indication. In Canada and Britain, both with tough gun-control laws, nearly half of all burglaries occur when residents are present. But in the U.S. where many households are armed, only about 13% happen when someone is home.

Recognizing clear statistical benefit evidence, 41 states now allow competent, law-abiding adults to carry permitted or permit-exempt concealed handguns. As a result, crime rates in those states have typically fallen at least 10% in the year following enactment.






So the majority in our Senate is smart enough to realize that the U.N.’s gun-grab agenda is unconstitutional, politically suicidal for those who support it, and down-right idiotic—right? Let’s hope so, but not entirely count on it. While a few loyal Obama Democrats are truly “pro-gun”, many are loathe to vote against treaties that carry the president’s international prestige, causing him embarrassment.

Also, don’t forget that Senate confirmation of anti-gun Obama nominee Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Many within the few who voted against her did so only because of massive grassroots pressure from constituents who take their Constitutional protections very seriously.

Now, more than ever, it’s imperative to stick by our guns in demanding that all Constitutional rights be preserved. If not, we will surely lose both.








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OF HEROES AND THE HONORABLE DEAD

"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato




Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery, Kanchanaburi - River Kwai - Thailand




Arlington National Cemetary, Virginia


The following is an incredible piece - brought to my attention by Theo - from the Jewish Chronicle on-line.


WE BELIEVE IN ISRAEL

Col Richard Kemp's speech to 'We Believe in Israel' Conference - London, 15 May

Lieutenant Paul Mervis was a platoon commander in the British Army’s 2nd Battalion The Rifles. His company serjeant major said of him: “In my twenty years in the Army, I have never met, nor am I likely to meet, a man who cared so much about his men. He fought the corner of every single one of them.”

Paul had a razor sharp intellect and devoured military books in his desire to gain ever greater knowledge of his chosen profession. According to his platoon serjeant: “He had our utmost respect as a platoon commander, but perhaps more so as a genuine friend.”

He had an infectious sense of humour, and was always messing about and joking like one of the lads – one of his soldiers said you could hear his laugh anywhere in the base in Afghanistan – usually at someone else’s expense!

He had time for everyone, and would go out of his way to help anyone he could. He made an enormous effort to get to know as many as possible of the 600 troops in his battalion. His men were always at the forefront of his mind, and although he was their commander, every man felt he could approach him and talk about absolutely everything. Although still a young man, Paul was like a father-figure to his soldiers.

On patrol near Sangin, central Helmand, on the morning of the 12th of June last year both of Paul’s legs were blown off by a Taliban bomb hidden in the roof of a school. His men worked desperately – desperately – to save his life, but he died soon afterwards.

With enormous personal courage, he had been leading his men from the front through an area known to be laced with explosives, putting himself in danger to protect the lives of his men, risking everything to safeguard the local people, including women and children, who had been so horrifically assaulted by the Taliban.

After his death, one of the soldiers under his command, Lance Corporal Joe Ellis, said: “The Merv-dog left us this morning, surrounded by his men. He will always be part of 10 Platoon – tough riflemen who were proud to be led by him.”

Lieutenant Paul Mervis was a Jewish soldier.

He grew up in London, and was educated at King’s College School Wimbledon. He spent a gap year in Israel, studying Hebrew. During his service in Afghanistan, His sister Hannah and brother Jack sent him a provisions parcel with matzah and dried chicken soup so that he could mark the Passover festival while on duty. Paul carried a 1936 issue Soldier’s Siddur which had previously belonged to Sergeant Dave Newman, a Jewish soldier who fought in the Battle of El Alamein in World War II.

It would have been equally possible for Paul to have opted to join the Israeli Defence Forces to realise his soldierly ambitions, as do so many young British Jewish men and women. In fact he did undergo training with the IDF during his gap year before joining the British Army.

But had he joined the IDF, instead of developing into a brave, dedicated military leader concerned for the welfare of his men and taking every conceivable step to protect the civilian population, would Paul Mervis have become a callous, brutal thug, haphazardly dropping white phosphorous into the houses of innocent civilians? Would Paul Mervis have deliberately and without qualms killed women and children? Would Paul Mervis have blown up schools, raked ambulances with machinegun fire?

No. No. No. Because that image of the Israeli Defence Forces is horribly false.

This malevolent portrayal of the Israeli Defence Forces is carefully and systematically planned, cultivated, developed, expanded and relentlessly driven forward. It is the key part of what amounts to nothing less than a pernicious and increasingly dangerous global conspiracy of propaganda aimed at the total delegitimization of the state of Israel. A conspiracy that has so far exceeded in its international scope, anything dreamt of even by that master of propaganda, Dr Josef Goebbels himself, spreading the idea that Israel is so evil that it has no right even to exist, aiming for the point where that idea becomes an acceptable, mainstream argument in our societies.

It is no surprise of course that such a campaign has great popularity in the Arab and the wider Islamic world any more than Goebbels’s twisted propaganda machine succeeded in persuading so many Germans to his murderous cause. But what is truly shocking is the traction that this propaganda has gained in the west among student bodies, teachers, university authorities, academics, think tanks, human rights organizations, aid agencies, parliamentary bodies, and – perhaps most damaging of all, the mass media.

What is the evidence for this?

A favourite vehicle for the anti-Israel conspiracy is the United Nations Human Rights Council. While continuing to neglect the woefully abused rights of 350 million citizens of the Middle East, not to mention the rights of many more people the world over, the Council focuses its attention almost exclusively on Israel. The Report of the UN Fact Finding Mission into the 2009 Gaza Conflict, better known as the Goldstone Report, accused Israeli forces of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, deliberately killing, wounding and terrorising innocent civilians.

That report was endorsed on two occasions by the General Assembly of the United Nations. But only last month, Judge Richard Goldstone retracted the most serious allegations that he had made, saying that Israel did not in fact intentionally kill or wound innocent civilians. He wrote that if he had known at the time of his investigation what he knows now, the Goldstone Report would have been a very different document. Well, I, with my far more limited resources and access, could have told him a great deal of what is now apparently new to him.

In fact, I did tell him at the time of his report, in evidence I gave to the United Nations Human Rights Council in October 2009:

“During its operation in Gaza, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”

I based my opinion on 30 years of experience fighting terrorists and insurgents, of my detailed study of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, of my extensive knowledge and understanding of the Israeli Defence Forces, and of my knowledge of Hamas and its military strategy and tactics. The same strategies and tactics used by insurgents and violent jihadists in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other parts of the world.

Many people have contradicted my assertion about the IDF. But no one has been able to tell me which other army in history has ever done more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone. In fact my assertions about the steps taken in that conflict by the Israeli Defence Forces to avoid civilian deaths are inadvertently borne out by a study published by the United Nations itself. A study that shows that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in Gaza was by far the lowest in any asymetric conflict in the history of warfare.

The UN estimate that there has been an average three-to-one ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in such conflicts worldwide. Three civilians for every combatant killed. That is the estimated ratio in Afghanistan: three-to-one. In Iraq, and in Kosovo, it was worse: the ratio is believed to be four-to-one. Anecdotal evidence suggests the ratios were very much higher in Chechnya and Serbia.

In Gaza, it was less than one-to-one.

This extremely low rate of civilian casualties flatly contradicts many of Goldstone’s original allegations, and the bleating insistence of various other human rights groups about Israel’s alleged crimes against humanity.

As with Operation Cast Lead, the tragedy of the Gaza flotilla incident almost exactly one year ago has been widely exploited as part of the conspiracy against Israel. The anti-Israeli activists on board the ship Mavi Marmara set out deliberately to provoke the Israeli boarding party into an attack that would cause bloodshed to be exploited in the world’s media. Which of course is exactly what happened.

The Turkish humanitarian group IHH were prominent among the organizers of the Flotilla, and had purchased the Mavi Marmara for that purpose. As well as being a genuine humanitarian aid group, the IHH is a radical Islamic organization: vehemently anti-Israeli and anti-American, with extensive connections to international jihadist groups including Al Qaida.

According to a French investigative magistrate specialising in terrorism, the IHH played an important role in an Al Qaida plan to carry out a mass-casualty attack at the Los Angeles International Airport on the eve of the millennium. So – not an entirely innocent humanitarian organization attacked without justification by vicious Israeli thugs, as presented in the world media, by governments and by the UN.

The Israeli handling of the Flotilla Incident was far from a model military operation. Indeed Israel’s Turkel Commission criticised a lack of preparedness by the commandos who boarded the Mavi Marmara. But I have seen nothing to suggest that their actions amounted to a breach of international law. Many have stridently proclaimed that the Gaza blockade itself is illegal. But does the government of Israel not have the right – indeed the duty – to protect its citizens against the re-arming of Hamas and other jihadist groups in Gaza, which continue to attack the civilian population of Israel with rockets, and undoubtedly desire to expand their conflict in line with the proclaimed objective of destroying Israel as an entity?

The Royal Navy, the Irish Navy and the French Navy often boarded ships heading towards Ireland in the ’80s and searched them for munitions at a time when Gadaffi’s Libya was arming the IRA with weapons, missiles and explosives that killed hundreds of British soldiers and civilians. But unlike Israel’s blockade – which has an identical purpose – these boardings were never criticised or characterised illegal and still are not.

And I’ll bet that no-one will accuse NATO of acting unlawfully in its naval blockade of Libya which was put into place a few weeks ago. Again, an operation with an identical purpose to the Gaza maritime blockade – a blockade in which, with supreme irony Turkey – arch condemners of the Gaza blockade – is playing a role.

But why would they be criticised? These were not Israeli operations. To Israel, a completely different standard is unfairly and unrealistically applied by so many, even in the Western world, as a result of the international conspiracy of deligitimisation against Israel.

On her 63rd birthday I do not see an apocalyptic future for the State of Israel. Allah will not bring a new holocaust to the Jewish people at the hands of Islamic believers, according to the evil prophecy of Sheikh Youssef Qaradawi, spiritual guide to the Muslim Brotherhood, who are no doubt on the eve of gaining significant power in Egypt. Israel will not be “wiped off the map”. Her people will not be “driven into the sea” in accordance with the perverted vision of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad who disposes so many of his nation’s offensive resources with such brutality against the Israeli people.

But a central aim in the conspiracy of delegitimization against Israel is to give validity and justification to attacks on Israel by groups such as Iran’s proxies Hamas and Hizballah, allowing them to strike at Israel with impunity, and encouraging the view that any retaliatory or defensive measures by Israel are by definition disproportionate and should be criminalised. The more traction this objective is allowed to gain, the greater the instability between Israel and her neighbours; the less chance of any lasting peace; the more that blood will be shed on all sides in the region.

The most powerful weapons in this conspiracy are legal, diplomatic and media. Fundamentally we are talking about a war of words. Words that are given unprecedented potency by the internet, by the globalisation of the 21st Century. Words have consequences. Look at the Goldstone Report. I have no doubt that people have died because of the hatred stirred up as a result of the endorsement of false accusations by the Goldstone Report. People who need not have died. What is said and who says it is of course very important.

There is nothing the anti-Israeli conspirators find more appetising than the support for their agenda of Jewish voices. That is why they so relished Judge Goldstone’s specious role. It is the same basis on which the Nazis prized the British Lord Haw-Haw above any of their own broadcasters. And the late, unlamented Usama bin Laden seized so hungrily upon the supportive words of Noam Chomsky.

If this is a war of words, we must also use words to counter attack. I am not suggesting that anybody should give unqualified support for Israel, or that we should not dissent on any specifics of policy or approach – even in the widest sense. I am critical of many of Israel’s actions, as indeed I am critical of many of the actions of our own democratic government here in the UK and of many of our institutions. I recognise too that the IDF is far from perfect. They make mistakes. As do the British Army. Apart from anything else the friction of war ensures it. They certainly killed people in Gaza who should not have died. As did the British Army in Northern Ireland, in Iraq and in Afghanistan. They have bad soldiers, who either through stupidity or malicious intent, disobey orders. As does the British Army. I know as well as anybody about that!

But the conspiracy that I have been discussing does not concern itself with such details as this, or with any individual policy of Israel. It seeks to undermine the right of Israel to exist as an entity. And it is this that we must stand up against, as we would stand up vigorously against any movement that seriously sought to undermine the existence of our own state. In this war of words, all that is necessary for this evil conspiracy of delegitimisation to triumph is for good men to say nothing.

I would like to conclude by adding to the theme of this conference. As a friend of Israel, of course I “believe in Israel”. As a life-long soldier I believe also in the brave, dedicated, and democratically-accountable soldiers of the Israeli Defence Forces, who sacrifice so much for the defence of Israel and for our Western democratic values.




American Cemetery, Colleville - Omaha Beach - Normandy


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MIDDLE EAST CRAZINESS UPDATE

Toyota Wars II - Analysis of the war emerging in Libya; how Gadaffi outflanked the rebels and NATO in a throwback to the high-speed Battles of the Technicals with Chad in the eighties, with graphics.






ARAB LEAGUE TO ASK UN TO IMPOSE NO-FLY ZONE OVER GAZA

Gaza ceasefire brokered by UN official Robert Serry who acts as intermediary between Hamas and Jerusalem.




Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa plans to present the proposal to the UN Security Council.




KORAN BURNING - IN IRAN



(Washington Times) — Two anonymous young men in Iran, one Iranian and one Afghan, have burned a Koran in protest. This seven-and-a-half minute long video shows the two men, their faces obscured, holding the Muslim holy book and reading prepared statements. They say that Arabs have foisted this book and their homelands and because of it they have gone backwards for 1400 years. They say they dislike the Koran and want it to disappear, adding “Viva freedom!”

Afterwards they stand the Koran on a flat rock, douse it alcohol and light it. One of them hoots and laughs. The book burns fiercely, and after a few moments one of them sprays more alcohol into the flames. The video ends with them warming their hands over the blazing book.


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AFGHAN MOB TORE OPEN BUNKER TO KILL FOREIGN UN STAFF

"THE REALITY IS THAT OUR GURKHAS ARE NEVER GOING TO SHOOT AT CIVILIANS"


KABUL (Reuters) - An angry mob that killed seven foreign UN staff in north Afghanistan ripped out the door of a bunker where several had taken shelter, and slit the throat of one man who survived a bullet, the top UN envoy in the country said on Saturday.




Afghans carry a man who was wounded in an attack on the UN's office in Mazar-i-Sharif, north of Kabul. Mustafa Najafizada/Associated Press

Staffan de Mistura promised that the United Nations would stay in Afghanistan after the vicious assault, the deadliest it has faced in Afghanistan, but would have to reconsider security, particularly guarantees from Afghan forces.

"We are not leaving," de Mistura told a small group of journalists in the Afghan capital, after flying back from Mazar-i-Sharif where he handled the aftermath of the attack.

De Mistura said the violence, in a normally peaceful city, had caught ill-prepared Afghan police by surprise, and the Gurkhas who are the next layer of security for the United Nations could not open fire because they are forbidden to shoot into crowds that contain civilians.

Afghan police were the first line of protection on Friday when a crowd of up to 3,000 demonstrators enraged by the burning of a Koran by a militant fundamentalist Christian in the United States overran the compound, killing seven staff.

Read it HERE




"They were killed when they were running out of the bunker," said Staffan de Mistura, the top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan. Photo: Eric Kanalstein, UNAMA / AP


THEIR BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS TERRY JONES

The victims died after Afghans protesting the burning of Islam's holy book at a U.S. church stormed the compound in Mazar-i-Sharif.

Pastor Terry Jones conducted a ritualistic burning of the Koran on Sunday, March 20th 2011 at his Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla.


SPECIAL COMMUNIQUE TO: Pastor Terry Jones This is where your book burnings lead to. Freedom-loving people believe in freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion. Freedom-loving people do not burn books.






I would call you out, sir, to debate this freely in the Arena of Ideas - but you are a Mental Midget, an Intellectual Microbe. Against mindsets like yours, I might as well debate the Cliffs of Moher. And yet there is a danger posed by your special kind of idiocy, because it is imbeciles like you who start world wars.


I'm a Christian - but I'm not THIS kind of Christian. This is not Christianity as I know it.

SEAN LINNANE SENDS


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THE LIBYA THING

So what exactly are we going to call this thing? Used to be we had heroic names for wars:

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR . . . . . . THE WHISKEY REBELLION . . .

. . . THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR . . . . . . THE BOXER REBELLION . . . . . .


Somewhere between World War II (a.k.a. THE BIG ONE) and Vietnam I guess we just ran out of names, sort of like modern car companies with their meaningless Prius and Altimas.




Back when everything was real.


There was a bit of hope there for awhile when they called my generation's Big One THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR but that was too cool for the current Occupier of the Whitehouse - in one of his first official acts Barry Soetero downgraded our Great and Glorious Patriotic War to the pragmatic "Overseas Contingency Operations" . . .


. . . how Zen-like . . . how PC . . . how lacking in macho and crotch-o . . . the antithesis of everything a war is supposed to be all about.


Somewhere along the line, even cool names for campaigns - OPERATION OVERLORD - the Allied invasion of Normandy in World War II . . . OPERATION POWER PACK - the U.S. invasion and occupation of Dominican Republic 1965-66. . . OPERATION URGENT FURY the United States intervention in Grenada, 1983 . . . political correctness took over and the Panama Invasion of 1989- the largest Airborne invasion in history was dubbed OPERATION JUST CAUSE - and just as quickly re-named "OPERATION JUST BECAUSE" by the sarcastic G.I.'s who participated in the combat jump.




Eighty-Deuce Bustin' Loose!


For a brief moment of time there OPERATION ODYSSEY DAWN had some promise . . . the name ain't so bad; a cross between Homer's great adventures of Ulysses and ZULU DAWN. Of course that was too heroic, it could never last. How intriguing that the minute the Canadians are nominally put in charge its re-flagged OPERATION UNIFIED PROTECTOR . . . sounds like some kind of United Nations birth control campaign . . .


Of course I say "nominally" because everybody knows NATO is an American club; if it wasn't for the United States, the Soviet Union would still be going strong and the F-4 Phantom would be the state-of-the-art European fighter.


Never mind the name, this thing has been wrong and disingenuous from the start. Under the Constitution, the President of the United States has the power to commit U.S. military forces - but only when U.S. national interests are threatened.




THIS is how a President sends Americans into harms way.


For this Libya business, Obama should have gone to Congress . . . instead he went to the United Nations . . . doesn't pass the smell test and worse - a dangerous move toward downgrading United States sovereignty and prestige on the world stage.




Hello, Rio! Alô, Cidade Maravilhosa!


From lack of threat to our national interest it was a quick step to total lack of anything resembling a plan, let alone an overall objective - this led me to exclaim that what we have here is not a war; it is a series of war-like actions.


Certainly it has the parts and pieces of a war - things are being broken and people are being killed - but to what end? What is our over-arching national strategic objective? Well . . . lemme see here . . . we don't have one ! ! !


THIS IS NOT A WAR . . .


. . . we haven't had one since 1945. A war is more than just killing things and breaking people . . . in war the theoretical objective is to defeat the enemy population's will to wage war - Clauswitz. The concept of War is naturally associated with words like "Capture the Flag," "Victory" and "Unconditional Surrender."


What are we doing in Libya? Somebody? Anybody?




OK it's for oil - I'm okay with that.



"Oil is the lifeblood of Democracy" - Churchill. Or are we there because France can't handle any more Muslims? TO HELL WITH THAT - let the Froggies deal with their matters themselves; we could use a couple fighter wings of F-18s down on the Arizona border to deal with our own illegal immigrant situation.


OK let's back up and throw some analysis on this thing because we've been at it for a couple weeks now and people are getting hurt . . . this one-man state ("L'etat c'est moi!") Gadhafi is an international bad guy and an overall pig . . . not that we have any shortage of THOSE these days . . . Kim Jong Il anybody? Hugo Chavez? Achmedinnijad? These are the shitheads, the haters, guys who wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell if you put them in the dock at the Hague . . . never mind THOSE pigs - right now the Libyan rebels won the PR war; they are the cause celebre du jour ergo Barack appeases his social conscience and enhances his stature with the amongst nations of the Third World at the same time.


We don't have a plan and we don't have a stated objective but what's that to stop us? We've got . . . MISSION CREEP! "No boots on the ground" quickly morphed in to Special Operations painting targets with lasers, staging assets for CSAR (Combat Search and Rescue), and providing support to the CIA in their mission borrowed from NASA; "Muslim Outreach."


This is doctrinal, of course, and totally predictable. It's also mission creep; does OPERATION RESTORE HOPE ring any bells? This was the yawn-fest code-name for the U.S. food-parcel handout mission into Somalia - which quickly evolved into the heaviest combat operations for U.S. forces since Vietnam, some twenty-odd years earlier.






By conveniently announcing to the world that our mission does not involve regime-change, this telegraphs to Muamar the Mad that all he has to do is hang in there and take the punishment from the sky - sooner or later the round-eyes will exit stage left and anyway, surrender is not an option; he saw what happened to his buddy Saddam.



POLITICS ENDS AT THE WATERS EDGE DEPT.


Linnane's First Principle of Warfare states: "When you find yourself involved in a war, you must commit to certain victory in as short a time as possible with every resource available; to do anything else equals criminal negligence."




We de-humanize our enemies; it makes them easier to kill.


Americans are in harms way - we pray for them, we wish them Godspeed in this honorable fight against a bona-fide bad guy, Gadhafi Duck, and we certainly hope this thing ends quickly, and honorably.


And it must; "We will not deploy any U.S. troops on the ground," the president said, and called the strikes "limited military" intervention.


Pronouncements like these are from the "We'll bring the boys home by Christmas" genre -




. . . and we all know how THAT worked out in 1914.



. . . SEAN LINNANE SENDS




Today's bird HERE



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WAR BY OTHER MEANS

- Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments


"War is diplomacy by other means." - Clauzwitz


The first strikes of the British-French-US coalition have at last taken place against the Gaddafi regime. Given the intensity of the attacks and the hardware involved, it is predictable the situation be proclaimed "War #3".

To proclaim this a 'war' is premature, however. What we are engaged in over Libya is to War what driving your daily highway commute is to NASCAR. I will explain this analogy:

In his announcement approving US missile strikes on Libya, President Obama warned Muammar Gaddafi that "actions have consequences", while at the same time stressing that no US ground troops would deploy to the region. This self-imposed constraint tells the world that the United States has limited objectives in the current military actions. More significantly, this encourages Gaddafi to hang in there; we're not coming after him.

This is not War; there is no causal series of events, no clear objective. This is your typical United Nations episode choreographed by committee with the intent on freezing events at a single historic period of time - now - like every other United Nations success story around the world; Korea, Cyprus, Iraq . . . no, wait; the UN bolted out of Iraq and then and only then did any progress occur toward defeating Evil and liberating the population.

Again, Clauswitz: "War . . . is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will."

Unless our will is to allow Gaddafi to remain in power and to continue his reign of terror, there is no evidence yet that we have committed ourselves to war in North Africa. Instead, what is taking place are war-like actions; the international military version of a SWAT team. In other words, a police action.

Critics of my analysis will say that Libya is sparsely populated, there are few targets - we will bomb the tyrant to smithereens within a few weeks. In professional military circles, this is referred to as "underestimating your enemy".


"You are a professional, but the world is full of dangerous amateurs." - Murphy's Law of Combat


Consider Vietnam. We dropped more ordinance on that tiny country than we did over the entire European Theater of Operations during World War II, so much so that we ran out of targets to bomb. And yet the Communist leadership knew that unless we were willing to invade and occupy the North, all they had to do was hang in there and sooner or later we'd tire of the effort, take our bat and ball and go home.

But Vietnam had a worldwide Communist Bloc backing it up, with direct lines of supply from Red China straight down to the southern battlefields; Libya does not have this. Au contraire - Libya is backed by the entire continent of Africa - an amazing continent of unfounded natural resources and almost limitless manpower - and Gaddafi has spent forty years investing in those assets.

It will be interesting to see how and when mission creep evolves toward assisting the rebel forces toward a genuine war of movement, and what other players appear on the battlefield. Reminder - the Muslim Brotherhood holds tenuous sway over the street mobs of Cairo, a day's drive across the desert to the East. A principle of war is Momentum. Will a power vacuum develop, such as took place in Iraq in the spring of '03?

Whether or not this is how it plays out in Libya, today Gaddafi listens to Obama's words and what he hears is that he's been given breathing room. Consider Gaddafi's actions of the past week - the man has nothing to lose. He realizes there is no villa waiting for him in the south of France; this is it - all or nothing. If Gaddafi has to pack his bags and go, his next stop is a cell in the Hague. To Hell with that - Gaddafi is a Satanic bazillionaire with an evil army and air force at his disposal. From his point of view, all Gaddafi had to do was give the UN a little lip service and keep on slaying his opponents; the rat infestation in his barn had gotten so out of hand the only way to control it was with a flamethrower.


- SEAN LINNANE SENDS



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THE SAGA OF THE MERCENARY SOLDIER PART II

Mercenaries are in the headlines again, this week in the madness and insanity that is Qaddafi's Libya. My initial thoughts when I first saw this was that the North African Nutjob had a cadre of Eastern European professional soldiers as a sort of Varangian Guard, but as it turns out Qaddafi's personal foreign legion are basically a pack of thugs from Zimbabwe:




Tooling around in Tobruk, looking for some ass to kick.




Suspected African mercenaries stand in a room in a court in Benghazi as they are held by anti-Qaddafi protesters, February 24, 2011


If these guys are anything like any and every African soldier I ever trained, worked with or encountered on the battlefield; they've all got malaria, half of them can't read or write, and their only understanding of the Law of Land Warfare is that they're breaking every law in the book. No matter how hard you train them, in contact they revert to the "spray-and-pray" school of gunfighting and the safest place to be when they're shooting at you is right out in the middle of the street because they can't hit the broad side of a barn from the inside.




A dead Zimbabwean, formerly in the hire of Muammar Qaddafi


These are heathen savages, capable of the most horrific atrocities. To call them barbarians is an insult to all barbarians everywhere and the only thing professional about Qaddafi's mercenaries is the fact that they've been doing what they're doing for a prerequisite period of time. Their knowledge of tactics or gunnery starts at the buttstock of their Kalishnikov and ends at the business end.




Amongst Africans, the term "mercenaries" has mystic, almost supernatural connotations.


Despite the public's fascination with the subject, there's a lot of misunderstanding about the term "mercenary". Most people consider a mercenary to be a soldier that serves merely for wages. According to this broad definition, practically every member of every standing, professional army in the world is a mercenary - and I've actually heard American soldiers referred to in this vein.

A more selective definition is found in Webster’s Dictionary: "a mercenary is a soldier hired into foreign service serving merely for pay or sordid advantage." According to this criteria, every foreign national serving in the U.S. military - including yours truly - is a mercenary.

According to the definitions found within the Hague and Geneva Conventions; a mercenary is a professional soldier hired by a foreign army, as opposed to a soldier enlisted in the armed forces of the sovereign state of which he is a citizen, and is "motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the Armed Forces of that Party" (Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Convention of August 1949).

Non-conscript professional members of a regular army are not considered mercenaries even though they get remuneration for their service. Under this definition, even members of the French Foreign Legion and the Gurkha Regiment are technically not mercenaries under the Laws of Land Warfare, even though they meet many of the requirements of Article 47 of the 1949 Additional Protocol I; they are exempt under clauses 47(a)(c)(d)(e)&(f). Journalists tend to describe these soldiers as mercenaries regardless.

There ARE mercenaries out there; I have known a few. Adventurers, guns-for-hire, some of them I even consider professional counterparts, but more often than not their activities are of questionable legal or ethical nature. I myself have been called a mercenary but this is a stretch; I retired honorably from the military, and I work in the security profession. I am certainly not a criminal, and there are some things that I simply will not do for pay.

The notorious Thahan Phran (ทหารพราน; literally "Hunter Soldiers") - an irregular light infantry force which patrols the borders of Thailand - are considered mercenaries, although they are technically part of the Royal Thai Army, and they certainly are not foreigners.




Thai Tahan Prahn soldier on security perimeter.


The private security contractors in the hire of the U.S. Department of Defense or State Department are not mercenaries; they are technically no different than the private security manning the gates at U.S. government facilities throughout the United States - they not mercenaries anymore so than postal inspectors are Federal Law Enforcement.


On the other hand, Qaddafi's goons ARE mercenaries, although I consider them professionals only in that they serve for pay. And in light of the way these brigands are conducting themselves, they are not soldiers any more than the Khmer Rouge or Hitler's SS were; "uniformed organized crime" is how I refer to this kind of scum.


. . . . . . . . . . . . . SEAN LINNANE SENDS


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NORTH KOREAN KILLING FIELDS 1

The first viewer's comment on YouTube: "Where is the United Nations?"

That cracks me up - just goes to show what sitting around waiting for the government will get you . . . S.L.



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CLINTON UPDATE

Why does nobody pay any attention to what Hillary is doing? She's the Secretary of State; a preacher with a ministry of 50 people down in Florida gets more attention whether or not he burns a Koran, like it matters?


Hillary seems to be getting one hell of a pass by the press.

She basically hasn't done anything of notice or merit IN EITHER DIRECTION for either political party since she ran for presidential election. Smells funny to me.

Michelle Obama gets 10 pages here and three pages there and she has no official role but the primarily leftist press doesn't trumpet any Hillary achievements because she doesn't have any notable ones I can recall and the right wing press doesn't attack her for any decisions or policies to amount to anything, because she DOES NOT SEEM TO HAVE ANY.

I smell a lawyer looking to run for president masquerading as Secretary of State.

Barack Hussein Obama won't release enough records to enlist in the US Army as an E-1 and Hillary Clinton won't do the slightest thing that might attract the least bit of attention to herself from her political enemies.

She's given a couple of speeches with basically no content; she could be called on from either camp, especially at places like UNICEF parties; she tippy-toes around talking to foreign leaders about nothing of consequence. Basically she's doing her best to look like she has no opinions . . .

Any readers out there who can give me firm examples of where she's stood up for much of anything at all of SIGNIFICANCE on principle since she became Secretary of State, FEEL FREE.

As Secretary of State she has had absolutely ZERO noticeable/notable influence on ANYBODY'S foreign policy or actions.

Interesting, isn't it?

Sarkozy's wife gets more press than HC and she's just an "executive toy" as far as politics go.


MEANWHILE . . .

Is Bill Clinton's CGI the New U.N.?



Has Bill Clinton gotten bigger than the United Nations? The Clinton Global Initiative may not have a standing army, but the organization is becoming known for tackling the thorny problems the U.N. can't handle. CGI has nabbed top-tier speakers from Barack Obama to Bill Gates for its New York summit this week—happening right down the street from the U.N.'s General Assembly meeting. The U.N. may be the terrain of "nerdy policy people," international health expert Paul Farmer tells Olopade, but "what happens at CGI is the nitty-gritty of deal making."


Read about it HERE.


Member of Team STORMBRINGER, Tom H. contributed to this post . . . S.L.


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