The BRAC (Base Realignment and Closing) list is out this morning, and it’s NOT good news for Rapid City and the Ellsworth AFB, which has been recommended for closure.
This isn’t totally final – there are additional steps in the BRAC proceess, but it certainly isn’t a positive development. More to follow on this one for sure.
On a more positive note, the SD Air Guard base at Joe Foss Field in Sioux Falls is slated for increased activity.
Privateers and Mercenaries
Most of this article by one Doug Casey from WND is a load of tripe, IMHO. I think the writer has a fundamental misunderstanding of what’s happening with Islamofascism (which he calls Islamism), and thinks apparently that if we weren’t over there meddling with their oil fields and exporting McDonald’s that they would leave us alone.
To this end, it is suggested that ALL US military presence should be withdrawn from EVERYWHERE, and that it would then be time for millenial peace, apparently. I guess, given the commentator’s background in international financial speculation, he has a tendency to interpret events in terms of geo-economic terms. Fair enough, everyone has a point of view, but from the Chief’s perspective he’s overlooking some fundamental historical trends.
If one examines the world map & highlights where wars are going on, far and away in most cases Islamofascism is involved. For example, the Phillipine Islamic guerilla insurrection, Islamic rebels in Thailand, Islamic Pakistan vs. (mostly) Hindu India, the old Bosnian – Serb argument, the Chechens & others mad at the Russians, even Islamists active in central Asiatic China, the slavery and genocide of animists and Christians in Sudan, and of course the terror war against the west playing out in the US, UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, etc. T
Now I could be mistaken, but most of these conflicts have nothing to do with the USA – but ALL of them involve radical Islamists, or Islamofascists. Many of these conflicts have deep historical roots, for a reason – the perennial drive of Islam in history to extend its sway via conquest and military domination, using whatever vehicle was at hand. This picture gives an example, illustrating one reason why, historically, the Serbs might not exactly like the Bosnian Moslems. The main driver for the Islamofascists’ violence is an internal, religious one – NOT external events, which are used only as a smoke-screen.
Alleged GOP Senator Against Bolton
Kerry-esque Waffling in Senate Committee
Sen. George Voinovich (RINO-Ohio)tried awfully hard to have it both ways today in the Senate Foriegn Relations Committee. Firstly he ripped a strip off UN Ambassadorial nominee John Bolton, but then backed away from siding with the Donks to prevent the nomination from clearing the committee for a floor vote.
Where do these people come from? If they are so uncomfortable with the GOP, why don’t they go to join the Donks? At least that would be an improvement in the state of their honesty – and the remaining real GOPers would focus their resources and time on those who are willing to fight the libDems instead of apologizing to them and running up the white flag in the face of moonbat rhetoric.
In the immortal words of the old comic character Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Americans Portrayed as Bloodsuckers
There’s a striking resemblence between some contemporary anti-American propaganda and some similar campaigns 70 years ago. This, from those charming folks who gifted Europe with WWII and the holocaust. (Bi-lingual pun there: the gas canisters at Auschwitz were labeled Giftgas!)
This is clearly laid out here, and is very interesting. I can still recall from when I was a young pup, and was watching some sort of program on TV that was noting the 15th anniversary of the end of WWII. An executive from Thyssen Steel was being interviewed about Germany then and now. I recall one question in particular, because my Dad’s (a veteran of the 1944-45 Italian campaign) reaction to the question and it’s answer caught my attention and started a conversation.
The question was whether or not the German industrialist thought that it was possible that something like the 3rd Reich could occur again in Germany. His (translated) answer was to the effect that “No, not again. There were serious mistakes made then. We wouldn’t make mistakes like that again.” That was enough to make my Dad chuckle and mutter “I’ll just bet they won’t!” Further conversation revealed to my teenaged brain the clear double meaning of that answer. Openly saying that “Germany wouldn’t go down that path again” but with a subtextual message that “Germany wouldn’t screw up again in the future and lose the war…Deutschland uber alles!”
He had a deep feeling that our next BIG war wouldn’t be against Russia, (This in the depths of the Cold War!) but would have us somehow lined up against Germany again. I’m not sure he wasn’t right, especially after seeing stuff like this.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Sibby takes detailed note documenting the Daschle/Dem politics surrounding the base-closing (BRAC) situation.
This pretty much goes along with the Chief’s own gut-level response from yesterday to the effect that politics trumps national interest for the Donks. SIbby does his usual great job of getting down to the detailed political nuts-and-bolts of the situation.
Brigham Young once stated words to the effect, that if there were some fragment of truth in hell, go down to hell, seize that truth, and bring it back.
In that spirit, Dennis Prager, posting on the earlier mentioned Puffington Post has some pithy thoughts on the current crop of campus neo-barbs that are popping up like a fungal bloom on the diseased (if not quite yet deceased) body of contemporary academia:
“I do not believe the Left recognizes how thin the line between civilization and chaos/evil is. As a Jew born shortly after the Holocaust, Nazi Germany and the gas chambers play a great role in my thinking. I recognize that the most cultured European country built Auschwitz; that Nazism was a secular, not a Christian ideology; that Ph.D.’s and intellectuals led the way to the death camps just as they did to the Gulag and other Communist holocausts.
Universities and museums were morally worthless in Weimar and Nazi Germany as they are now in America and Europe. So I have a primal fear of the moral chaos that follows the breaking down of America’s real moral foundations, such as Judeo-Christian values, public decency, freedom of speech, and the military.”
Definitely something to ponder here.
Huffington’s Toast – Some Competition for Scrappleface?
H/T to Chris Muir’s Day by Day comic strip which is carried by the Chief as you already have seen (at least I would expect so, since it’s the lead in this blog body!). The Huffington Toast is a GREAT improvement over the much ballyhooed Huffington Post – which DOES at least have the virtue potential to be a mine for bi-coastal moonbat intel.
Anyway, take a look at it – it’s good for some chuckles & grins.
SD DemMoonbats Promote Base Closing!
Another exposition in this post from S.D.P. of the active promotion of the current base-closing (BRAC) cycle about to come out. It seems that in spite of SD’s interest in maintaining the existance of Ellsworth AFB, and the Air Guard Facility at Joe Foss Field in Sioux Falls, our fair-haired boys then-Sen. Tom and Sen. Tim were out pushing to get the base-elimination ball rolling down the hill.
Let’s see now, what was that bit from the last election about “clout” helping the state? The real clout in this case was a potential clout to SD if either of these bases gets cut. At least under the impetus of political reality, our boy Sen. Tom later voted against the BRAC process, but it was like trying to stop a speeding train after it had pulled out of the station.
The question that thsi all brings to mind here, is what the probable basis of this was: the typical DemMoonbat opposition and continuing attempts to diminish the United States military in any way. The libDem and other lefties have a mental model that states “strong US military = bad”, so anything that diminishes that strength is by definirion then “good”. If one keeps that in mind, their stance is perfectly logical, given the pre-existing anti-military philosphy. It ultimately turns out to be just another case of a broader national Dummicrat agenda trumping the interest of the red-state chumps back home who keep voting for “clout”, which only turns around to be used to clout them in the head.
The Chief is somewhat optimistic – since the BRAC process started there is a significant change – recently elected Sen. John Thune, who has some pretty good markers from the White House for running in ’02, and then for beating Tom Daschle in ‘o4.
It should be recalled that Thune’s inclination in ’02 was to run for Governor – and it was his for the taking. It was direct intervention by the President that changed that into the Senate campaigns. Recently Sen. Thune has been actively meeting with Administration and DoD people concerning these bases. The Chief HAS to think that this political marker, whether or not it is explicity in play, is certainly remembered, and it may be hoped that the President’s well-developed sense of 2-way loyalty is enough to make the difference.
IF this is the case, then the “loss” to SD of Daschle’s alleged clout, may be decisive in a positive outcome for the state’s military bases. We’ll all know a lot more on Friday morning, when the preliminary BRAC recommendations hit the hill.
Giving Hollywood hell over ‘Heaven’
Jim Pinkerton comments on the less than stellar success of Ridley Scott’s new crusader epic.
It seems that too much PC has probably resulted in too little historical reality. Also, perhaps pro-Islam/bad-Christians is NOT a good selling point for us res-state infidels during the war against Islamofascism (in both forms as terrs and states, i.e. Iran, Syria.).
The first time I saw a promo for this flick, I noted to Mrs. Chief that either the movie would be totally crucified in the media for being harshly bigoted, or, it would be so watered down that it wouldn’t be worth seeing. Too bad it’s the latter – the Chief enjoys a good rip-snortin’ historical epic, as long as it’s not denatured like this one apparently is. Oh well.