Tag: war

A reaction to federal overreach

A family militia has taken over a federal wildlife building in Oregon.

The Mandate of Heaven has clearly been lost. Many, if not most, Americans no longer support the federal government, for a very wide variety of reasons.

This particular action is unlikely to be a successful challenge to federal authority, but it is even less likely to be the last. And as we saw in the case of the Soviet Union, all it takes is a single successful one before the whole system collapses.

A message from the Hammond family can be read on Oathkeepers. A more detailed account of events can be found here.

Immigration destroys culture

It’s fascinating to see that so many people still stubbornly clinging to outmoded concepts like Magic Dirt, Melting Pot, and Propositional Nation when all three ideas have been thoroughly rendered null and void by the ongoing mass movement of peoples and the dyscivic behavior of the invaders:

An immigrant group based in Bern has called for the emblematic white cross to be removed from the Swiss national flag because as a Christian symbol it “no longer corresponds to today’s multicultural Switzerland.”

Ivica Petrusic, the vice president of Second@s Plus, a lobbying group that represents mostly Muslim second-generation foreigners in Switzerland (who colloquially are known as secondos) says the group will launch a nationwide campaign in October to ask Swiss citizens to consider adopting a flag that is less offensive to Muslim immigrants.

In a September 18 interview with the Swiss newspaper Aargauer Zeitung, Petrusic said the cross has a Christian background and while the Christian roots of Switzerland should be respected, “it is necessary to separate church and state” because “Switzerland today has a great religious and cultural diversity. One has to ask if the State wants to continue building up a symbol in which many people no longer believe.”

In the interview, Petrusic said Switzerland needs new symbols with which everyone, including non-Christians, can identify. As an alternative to the current Swiss flag, Petrusic proposed the former flag of the Helvetic Republic (see image here) which was officially introduced in 1799 and consisted of green, red and yellow colors. “Those colors are similar to the current flags of Bolivia and Ghana and would represent a more progressive and open-minded Switzerland,” Petrusic said.

The proposal to change the Swiss flag has been met with outrage across the political spectrum and is sure to fuel anti-immigrant sentiments in Switzerland.

I tend to doubt this unexpected public statement by the senior commander of the Swiss Armed Forces is entirely unrelated to those sentiments.

Swiss army chief André Blattmann warned, in a Swiss newspaper article on Sunday, the risks of social unrest in Europe are soaring. Recalling the experience of 1939/1945, Blattman fears the increasing aggression in public discourse is an explosively hazardous situation, and advises the Swiss people to arm themselves and warns that the basis for Swiss prosperity is “being called into question.”

When even military commanders are telling the people to gun up, war is on the way.

“This is our home”

The post-Paris attacks responses continue to intensify:

Up to 600 French protesters desecrated a Muslim prayer hall in Corsica in a revenge attack prompted by the wounding of two firefighters and a police officer.

The furious mob smashed the prayer hall’s glass door, ransacked the interior and left around 50 partially-burned Korans littering the street overnight.

Chanting ‘Arabs get out!’ and ‘This is our home’, protesters marched through the streets of the French Mediterranean island’s capital, Ajaccio.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls described the attack on Twitter as ‘an unacceptable desecration’, and branded the violence towards the firefighters as an ‘intolerable attack’.

The violence began on the night of December 24, when two firefighters were ‘ambushed’ by ‘several hooded youths’ in the low-income neighbourhood of Jardins de L’Empereur.

It escalated when several hundred people gathered in front of police headquarters in the capital city, before marching through the streets to the housing estate where the attack on the firefighters took place. They then launched the violent assault on the local prayer room.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazaneuve insisted the perpetrators of both incidents would be tracked down and arrested, adding that there was no place for ‘racism and xenophobia’ in France.

As I have said, it will take two election cycles before the situation stabilizes. The current French government, like the current German government, Swedish government, and US government, are all actively taking the side of the invaders, against the nation, and therefore they are totally unable to bring a peaceful end to the situation. If we’re all lucky, they will accept being voted out and seeing their handiwork methodically undone.

If we’re not, there will be civil war throughout the West. It is eminently clear that a sufficient number of young Europeans have now concluded that they will no longer endure Muslim attacks without reprisals.

The governments can’t stop them. Are they going to arrest the 1500 young nationals in Holland? The 600 young nationals in Corsica? And they can’t even hold the threat of disemploying them over their heads, because the youth unemployment rates in Europe are over 50 percent. The die is cast, and most of the current governments have foolishly bet on the side that is destined to lose.

The graveyard of empires strikes again

How, exactly, is this failure to win in Afghanistan even remotely surprising, considering the past failures of the British and Soviet empires there?

Taliban outlast 14 years of U.S. combat in Afghanistan

The sudden killings of six American service members on a foot patrol by a suicide bomber this week is a graphic message back home that the Taliban are durable, able to launch a number of coordinated attacks in recent months across Afghanistan 14 years after the U.S. invasion.

A Pentagon report calls the security situation “fragile” and writes of the Taliban’s “resilience throughout the second half of the year.”

Perhaps they are unaware of our superior technology? Or perhaps we simply aren’t trying hard enough. Here is the thing. If you can’t win in nearly four times the amount of time it took to force both Japan and Nazi Germany to surrender, you can’t win, period.

So stop already. Declare victory if you must, even if no one will believe it. But stop!

US military vs the CIA

To say these reports of the US military taking one side and the CIA taking the other could have explosive repercussions would be putting it mildly:

The military’s resistance dates back to the summer of 2013, when a highly classified assessment, put together by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then led by General Martin Dempsey, forecast that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to chaos and, potentially, to Syria’s takeover by jihadi extremists, much as was then happening in Libya. A former senior adviser to the Joint Chiefs told me that the document was an ‘all-source’ appraisal, drawing on information from signals, satellite and human intelligence, and took a dim view of the Obama administration’s insistence on continuing to finance and arm the so-called moderate rebel groups. By then, the CIA had been conspiring for more than a year with allies in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to ship guns and goods – to be used for the overthrow of Assad – from Libya, via Turkey, into Syria. The new intelligence estimate singled out Turkey as a major impediment to Obama’s Syria policy. The document showed, the adviser said, ‘that what was started as a covert US programme to arm and support the moderate rebels fighting Assad had been co-opted by Turkey, and had morphed into an across-the-board technical, arms and logistical programme for all of the opposition, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State.

Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, confirmed that his agency had sent a constant stream of classified warnings to the civilian leadership about the dire consequences of toppling Assad. The jihadists, he said, were in control of the opposition. Turkey wasn’t doing enough to stop the smuggling of foreign fighters and weapons across the border. ‘If the American public saw the intelligence we were producing daily, at the most sensitive level, they would go ballistic,’ Flynn told me. ‘We understood Isis’s long-term strategy and its campaign plans, and we also discussed the fact that Turkey was looking the other way when it came to the growth of the Islamic State inside Syria.

Our policy of arming the opposition to Assad was unsuccessful and actually having a negative impact,’ the former JCS adviser said. ‘The Joint Chiefs believed that Assad should not be replaced by fundamentalists. The administration’s policy was contradictory. They wanted Assad to go but the opposition was dominated by extremists. So who was going to replace him? To say Assad’s got to go is fine, but if you follow that through – therefore anyone is better. It’s the “anybody else is better” issue that the JCS had with Obama’s policy.’ The Joint Chiefs felt that a direct challenge to Obama’s policy would have ‘had a zero chance of success’. So in the autumn of 2013 they decided to take steps against the extremists without going through political channels, by providing US intelligence to the militaries of other nations, on the understanding that it would be passed on to the Syrian army and used against the common enemy, Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State.

Once the flow of US intelligence began, Germany, Israel and Russia started passing on information about the whereabouts and intent of radical jihadist groups to the Syrian army; in return, Syria provided information about its own capabilities and intentions. There was no direct contact between the US and the Syrian military; instead, the adviser said, ‘we provided the information – including long-range analyses on Syria’s future put together by contractors or one of our war colleges – and these countries could do with it what they chose, including sharing it with Assad. We were saying to the Germans and the others: “Here’s some information that’s pretty interesting and our interest is mutual.” End of conversation.

The Joint Chiefs let it be known that in return the US would require four things: Assad must restrain Hizbullah from attacking Israel; he must renew the stalled negotiations with Israel to reach a settlement on the Golan Heights; he must agree to accept Russian and other outside military advisers; and he must commit to holding open elections after the war with a wide range of factions included.

Volume X: initial reviews

The initial response to the return of THERE WILL BE WAR and the new Volume X is extremely encouraging. Here are a few selections from the reviews and emails I’ve been receiving:

  • This is one of the best collections of SF writing I have ever read…. What really gets me about the series is how pertinent they are to today’s geopolitical situation.
  •  I want to emphasize how much quality the CH works have. What you are doing is important…. I’ll
    definitely be following up by purchasing the other volumes and Riding
    the Red Horse    .
  • I’m delighted to see this
    masterful series is back again, now addressing the issues of the 21st
    century. Dr. Pournelle’s introductions alone are worth the price of the
    book
  • This book is an absolute blast. A collection of short stories all of
    which have a military sci-fi theme, the stories themselves trend towards
    the top in terms of writing and story telling.
  • This anthology is exactly what to
    expect from serious men thinking and writing about war in the future and
    the technology of war as applied to both future and contemporary
    warfare. 
  • This is a fine effort, very timely, certainly one worth the
    investment of time and a few dollars for any person with an interest in
    the subject of war. It leaves me hoping that Volume XI finds us in
    months instead of decades.
  •  This is my first exposure to this
    series, and I find this installment intriguing. I found the preface of
    this book quite striking…. I am very much interested in reading the earlier volumes, and also look forward to future releases.
  • Well Worth the 25-Year Wait. This is an incredible book!
  • Volume 10, the latest There Will Be War, is worthy to stand with the best of that series. Mil-sf doesn’t get better than this.

As I have previously stated, Riding the Red Horse was the best mil-SF anthology published in the last 20 years. And there is no question that There Will Be War Vol. X is even better. If you have any interest in either science fiction or current events, it is a book that you simply must read.

This exchange was rather amusing:

I want the paperback to match my 9-volume set, damn it!
 
We’re going to sell you a
whole new set. The Volume I + Volume II omnibus in case hardcover will be
published next month. We’re going to release Volume IX in ebook next, so that we
can do a Vol IX + Vol X hardcover as the second in the print series. Then we’ll fill in the
blanks….

Those thrice-damned SJWs didn’t lie for once:  You ARE evil!

What part of “Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil” gave it away?

UPDATE: Not bad for Launch Day. Congratulations to Jerry Pournelle and all of the contributors.

 Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #276 Paid in Kindle Store
    #1 in Genre Fiction > Historical > Military
    #1 in Military > Strategy
    #2 in Genre Fiction > War

Russia wins round two

That is The Saker’s take on the 11th week of the Syrian-war-by-proxy being fought between Russia and the USA after the US pulls out 12 of its F-15s out of Turkey:

First, the downing of the Russian SU-24 is becoming a major liability. The Russians have immediately claimed that this was a carefully planned and cowardly ambush, but now top western experts agree. This is very embarrassing, and it could get much worse with the deciphering of the flight recorders of the SU-24 (which the Russians have found and brought to Moscow). The picture which emerges is this: not only was this a deliberate provocation, an ambush, but there is overwhelming evidence that the Turks used the information the Russians have provided to the USA about their planned sorties. The fact that the Americans gave that information to the Turks is bad enough, but the fact that the Turks then used that information to shoot down a Russian aircraft makes the US directly responsible. The USA is also responsible by the simple fact that there is no way the Turks could have set up this complex ambush without the USA knowing about it. Now, it is possible that some in the US military machine knew about it while others didn’t. This entire operation sounds to me like exactly the kind of goofball plan the CIA is famous for, so maybe Kerry at State or even Obama did not really “know” about it. Or they did and are now pretending like they did not. Whatever may be the case, the US is now obviously trying to “off-load” this latest screwup on Erdogan who himself is trying to off-load it on his Air Force chief. What is certain is that the plan failed, the Russians did not take the bait and did not retaliate militarily, and that now the political consequences of this disaster are starting to pile up. As for Erdogan, he wanted to come out of this as the Big Pasha, the tough man of the region, but he now looks like an irresponsible coward (Putin ridiculed how the Turks ran to NATO as soon as the Russian SU-24 was shot down when he said: ”they immediately ran to Brussels, shouting: “Help, we have been hurt.” Who is hurting you? Did we touch anybody there? No. They started covering themselves with NATO.”). Even the US and Europe are, reportedly, fed up and angry with him. As for the Russians, they seem to believe that he is a “Saakashvili v2” – a guy with whom there is nothing to discuss and whom the Kremlin considers as politically dead.

Second, look at Syria. Even under maximal pressure, the Russians did not yield or show signs of hesitation but did the exact opposite: they more than doubled their presence, brought in heavy artillery systems and even floated the idea of opening a 2nd major airport in Syria (this intention was later denied by Russian officials). For the Americans this meant something very simple: while the Russians are much weaker in Syria than the USA, they were clearly undeterred and were not only holding their ground, but digging in. In other words, they were ready for war.

This is a good sign for those of us who would prefer to see the war remain warm and by-proxy rather than hot and direct. Remember, unlike the Cold War, the role of the aggressor has now flipped, so whereas each US victory will tend to lead to more aggression, each setback will tend to lead to less.

Unfit for office

It’s fascinating to hear the press and the Republican Party that just sold out the American people again trying to claim Donald Trump is unfit for office when it’s got idiot candidates like these spouting off like ignorant tough guys who don’t understand that Russia and Iran are not Iraq and Grenada:

“If you’re in favor of World War III, you have your candidate.”

So said Rand Paul, looking directly at Gov. Chris Christie, who had just responded to a question from CNN’s Wolf Blitzer as to whether he would shoot down a Russian plane that violated his no-fly zone in Syria.

“Not only would I be prepared to do it, I would do it,” blurted Christie: “I would talk to Vladimir Putin … I’d say to him, ‘Listen, Mr. President, there’s a no-fly zone in Syria; you fly in, it applies to you.’

“Yes, we would shoot down the planes of Russian pilots if in fact they were stupid enough to think that this president was the same feckless weakling … we have in the Oval Office … right now.”

Ex-Gov. George Pataki and ex-Sen. Rick Santorum would also impose a no-fly zone and shoot down Russian planes that violated it. Said Gov. John Kasich, “It’s time we punched the Russians in the nose.”

Carly Fiorina would impose a no-fly zone and not even talk to Putin until we’ve conducted “military exercises in the Baltic States” on Russia’s border. Jeb Bush, too, would impose a no-fly zone.

These warhawks apparently assume that President Putin is a coward who, if you shoot down his warplanes, will back away from a fight.

Are we sure? After the Turks shot down that Sukhoi SU-24, Moscow sent fighter planes to Syria to escort its bombers and has reportedly deployed its lethal S-300 antiaircraft system there.

A U.S. Marine Corps aviator describes the S-300: “A complete game changer for all fourth-gen aircraft [like the F-15, F-16 and F/A-18]. That thing is a beast and you don’t want to get near it.”

Yes, the US military can beat the Russian military. It can almost surely beat both Iran and Russia-in-Syria. But it can’t do so without paying a price that is far heavier than any rational American wishes to pay. And if an already-exhausted US military gets stuck into the Middle East, that will give China a free hand in the Pacific and might even permit Russia to take back Ukraine.

This is precisely how great military powers manage to lose wars; they overrate their capabilities, sufficiently alarm enough enemies to cause them to band together, and try to fight a multiple-front war.

The French hunt the jihadists

As Americans and Brits alike have are wringing their hands over Donald Trump’s very moderate, entirely constitutional, and woefully insufficient proposal, the French are actively hunting the jihadists in their midst:

Police investigating the Paris terror attacks have shut down three mosques in a series of raids to close the net on Islamic extremists, the Express reports. Police in France also arrested the owner of a revolver found during Wednesday’s raid, France’s Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

Security officials found jihadist documents at the mosque where yesterday’s raids took place.

They have placed nine people under house arrest. Another 22 have been banned from leaving the country Mr Cazeneuve said.

France has been under a state of emergency since 130 people were killed in a series of terror attacks in Paris on November 13. Since then, some 2,235 homes and buildings have been raided, 232 people taken into custody, and 334 weapons confiscated.

Cazeneuve said the number of weapons apprehended so far is staggering. He said: “In 15 days we have seized one-third of the quantity of war-grade weapons that are normally seized in a year.”

All pro-gun advocates should strongly endorse the immigration ban and support the repatriation of all enemy nationals because the eventual alternative is a state of emergency and French-style crackdowns that will likely encompass the native population.

Now think about how many weapons are already stashed in the mosques across America.

So where is the third shooter?

All the early reports talked about three shooters, the police scanner discussed one suspect being detained, and the two killed in the SUV have been identified as Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik. But there has been nothing more about the reports of the 28 year-old Qatari named “Tayyeep Bin Ardogan” who was also identified as a shooter, although the name seems more than a little dubious as it is very similar to the name of the Turkish prime minister and Ardogan/Erdogan sounds Turkish, not Qatari. And yet, it appears the age is right.

A man who identified himself as Farook’s father told The New York Daily News his son worked as a health technician inspecting restaurants and hotels.

“I haven’t heard anything. He worked in a county office,” he said. “He’s married and has a kid. We’re estranged because my wife got the divorce, and they are together. She doesn’t want to see me.”

He added that he had not seen his son for some time.

“He was very religious. He would go to work, come back, go to pray, come back. He’s Muslim.”

Farook’s name first emerged after the two masked shooters opened fire at the party. Over a radio transmission, an officer could be heard telling a dispatcher that Farook was “acting nervous” and had walked out of the party 20 minutes before the shooting began. Other reports suggested he had been asked to leave.

The attackers were armed with handguns and rifles, and were dressed in camouflage clothing.

Meredith Davis, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, told NBC News: “With my experience with other mass shootings, there are indicators that this was well planned out.

“It was to be violent in nature. They were in tactical gear, I don’t know if they had ballistic protection… And had several several magazines full of ammunition fashioned to their bodies. So they were ready for a gunfight should that occur.”

There is currently scant detail about Tashfeen Malik, the second shooter, but San Bernardino police chief Jarrod Burguan said she was 27 years old.

Mr Burguan said: “We’re pretty comfortable that the two shooters that went into the building are the two shooters deceased on San Bernardino Avenue.”

“The first one is Syed, Rizwan, last name Farook. He is 28 years old. I am told that he is US-born. The person that was with him is a female. Her name is Tashfeen, last name Malik. She is 27 years old.”

Malik and Farook were husband and wife, according to the Los Angeles Times newspaper, while the police would only say they were “in a relationship”.

However, Farook’s colleagues at the Inland Regional Centre – where 14 people were shot dead and another 17 were wounded – told the LA Times that he had gone to Saudi Arabia and returned with a new wife, whom he had met online. An unnamed family member identified the wife as Malik.

One can’t help but notice there is a Saudi connection again. In any event, I’m sure we can all agree that Anthropogenic Global Warming/Climate Change is to blame and we all have a responsibility to ensure the Senate passes the Paris accords.