Monthly Archives: January 2019

A Note about a Note

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Ambassador John Bolton, at Monday’s noon press conference, had two brief notes at the top of his 8.5×11 yellow note pad, written in clear, black lettering.  One referenced Afghanistan, and the other said, “5,000 troops to Colombia.”

Naturally, the NLMSM jumped all over that second one and is wondering a) how could Bolton be so careless as to let the press see and photograph such a note, and b) whatever could it mean?

Look at how Bolton was holding his pad.  Bolton’s note was for Venezuela’s Maduro’s benefit.  What it means is that the NLMSM was trolled and made practical use of.  Bolton exposed the note knowing full well the NLMSM would jump all over it and bruit it about, ensuring that Maduro would see it.

What adult human being with two neurons to bump together into a ganglion, though (Maduro excepted), believes the Colombian government would let us stick half a division of American troops in their country with the risk we’d jump across the border and thereby involve Colombia in a war?

Jayjuz.

Progressive-Democrats and a Wall

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In a Fox News Online piece about a Fox News Sunday interview with President Donald Trump’s Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney from last Sunday, there appeared this gem from House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D, MS).

…Thompson…broke with some of his fellow congressional Democrats by acknowledging in an interview that he “would not rule out a wall in certain instances,” although he cautioned that the White House needs a better “plan” than simply using a wall as a “talking point.”

But then he said this:

“Mr President, Democrats will work with you.  But you can’t pick what Democrats you work with. We have picked our leaders, and you have to work with our leaders.  The notion that we can’t have barriers is just something that’s not true.”

This is the level of disingenuousness Republicans are stuck working with.  “Walls work in certain instances. You have to work with our leaders. We can have barriers.”  But Progressive-Democratic Party leadership—particularly House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) have promised no wall, no way, not ever.

The Progressive-Democrats are offering only talking points, not negotiation.  Still.

The Arrest of Roger Stone

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Roger Stone, pursuant to a Mueller “investigation” grand jury indictment (formally handed down by Mueller’s colleagues in the Southern District of New York), was raided and arrested by the FBI around 0600 Friday. The FBI was so fearful, too, of the highly dangerous criminal that is Stone, that they used 29 agents, including a swat team, in that dawn assault.

Mueller also arranged for CNN to be present to film, live, the raid and arrest.

Nobody but Mueller or the FBI knew the timing of the raid. The live film of the perp walk shows just how dishonest Mueller’s “investigation” or the FBI, or both, are.

A Note on Polling

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In particular, single-question polls embedded in newspaper articles of the sort opinary.com does.  One example is embedded in a Deutsche Welle article on the key players in the Venezuelan people’s struggle with their government.

The poll question asks Do you think Juan Guaido was right to declare himself president?

Unfortunately, there are only two answers offered:

  • No, he has no legitimacy. This is a coup.
  • Yes, Maduro is a dictator. Guaido will save Venezuela.

Leaving aside the question of whether Guaido might save anything, the question and its allowed answers assume that coups must have no legitimacy, ever.  The pollsters should consult the series of English civils wars against tyranny, our Declaration of Independence, and the French Revolution (even if the latter became corrupted and turned out badly).  Sometimes

when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them [mankind] under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

This is surely the case in Venezuela.

Such polls are amusing, but they can’t be serious.

Progress

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Even in the midst of the US government’s partial shutdown imbroglio and Great Britain’s Brexit fiasco, the two found time and energy to conduct joint operations training in the South China Sea.

Even though this only involved two ships—the Arleigh-Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell and Royal Navy Type 23 frigate HMS Argyll—it’s a critical beginning (not really a resumption; the last such joint exercise was eight years ago).

We need to expand on this, though.  We need, also, to run joint flotilla- and fleet-level exercises in the South China Sea, and then we need to involve Vietnam, the Republic of Korea, and Japan in this sort of joint exercise.  In their aggregate, they need to occur a couple of times per year—and they need to include island assault exercises.

It’s true that we also run RIMPAC exercises that involve US and Pacific Rim nations (excluding People’s Republic of China observers as of last year), and while these are advertised as warfare exercises, they’re only biennial, and they serve different warfare purposes: political, to promote stability in broader venues among the participating nations’ interactions, and occasionally to experiment with new weapons and new systems.

What I’m proposing has a more straight up military practicality: joint offensive training of actual assault operations against the sort of target we’re likely to face if the PRC decides to get overt in its occupation of the South China Sea, trying to enforce its seizure at gunpoint.

As an aside, it also would be useful to get the Republic of China started thinking about REFORGER-type exercises.