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| We're too busy to remember now, but please call us next year |
Last year on June 6, the White House sent out a lousy tweet to commemorate the 68th anniversary of D-Day, a cheap gesture which I thought was deplorable. This year, it hasn't even done that.
I know someone was using the White House Twitter account on June 6, because he or she sent a tweet decrying the lack of free Wi-Fi in our schools. But nothing about 10,000 men being killed or wounded on that day to begin the liberation of Europe from Nazi occupation. I'm partly disgusted, but also partly relieved that at least no political hack or intern used the occasion to promote the bombing of Syria.
Next year will be a round-number anniversary, and maybe our politicians will pay somewhat more attention then. At least, the French are already paying attention to the the 70th anniversary.
Something happened here 69 years ago, and it was - arguably - the most momentous event in world history. Shame on us that we don't commemorate it every year.
37 comments:
Good post TSB! 'Boots on the ground' didn't poll well this week or they would have said something.
gwb
TSB: Yes it is sad, but perhaps for the best. The tendency of humanity to forget the good and the bad allows it to live in the present and strive for the future, instead of being frozen in the past.
GWB: Forget "boots the ground," even a limited cruise missile strike is polling lower than any military action has in the last 20 years, about 36%. The lack of a strategy, or goals, or an articulable national interest better than 'Obama will lose credibility if he doesn't do something' is killing what little support there is in Comgress.
TSB, GWB: Syria, Nemesis has come.
TSB: A while back I came across "The Dispensable Nation" at the library. It is by a Hillary asst Sec. State. He describes in detail Af-Pak and lays total blame for the failure on Obama for driving everyone crazy by refusing to ever make a decision and only trusting people who were FP amateurs. And these NSA secrets..Who could ever imagine those all getting out? Not Obama.
gwb
TSB: The hits just keep on coming!
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/08/us-usa-security-snowden-petrobras-idUSBRE9870AD20130908?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=992637
We want your oil and we want it now! Also Gregg Hicks blasts Hillary's State Dept over Benghazi on ABC. gwb
GWB: That's a great book. Vali Nasr was/is a foreign policy academic, and he worked for Richard Holbrooke when he was the Af/Pak special representative. That gave him a ringside seat at the intersection of the White House and the State Department.
I haven't read him in detail yet, but I absolutely agree with this quote: “Our constant tactical maneuvers don’t add up to a coherent strategy or a vision of global leadership."
TSB: My 1st impression was 'this book will be great'. But the more I read the less I learned about anything of substance that actually happened. Vali has a great future as an academic looking for a job in the Hillary administration but my hope is that NSA backlash will lead us to drop world domination as a policy. gwb
(take a look at Nick Turse on Africom...We are building a big military presence in Africa while we deny doing it.)
TSB: How about shining some outrage on the Brits for selling Syria the precursors for all that Sarin gas over the past couple years? I notice that never comes up in the senate 'debate'. With a little digging we might even find Tony Blair's quartet played a role? History will remember that these Christian leaders were known by their large bank accounts and scholarly tink-tanks. gwb
TSB: Can you imagine how much it would cost to 'get rid of' 800 tons of chemical weapons? Watch Putin stick the US taxpayers with the bill for that on a 10 year plan. After all, we have a printing press and you can classify all the details. gwb
GWB: I don't know about those chemical exports (licenses anyway; not sure there were actually shipments) to Syria. Industrial chemicals capable of being used for weapons are still common chemicals used for making almost anything. Potasium fluoride is in my toothpaste, I think.
The Brits have a history of selling ready-made weapons like tanks and radars to regimes like Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. But they might not be so guilty here.
TSB: You might know of or like these guys... Veteran Intelligence Professionals For Sanity. They use their contacts with current intelligence guys to debunk the Kerry bs. gwb
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36157.htm
TSB: The Guardian is the hottest website on the internets..up 67 thousand percent compared to 1 yr ago. Evidently reporting the truth works even better than cat slide shows. Little gwb said:"Nothing lasts forever.. what's for breakfast?" gwb
TSB: News flash: Al Quaeda so upset with Obama's reversal they have called off this year's 9/11 attack. (according to my sources and imagination) gwb
You two may enjoy this:http://www.charlescrawford.biz/blog/syria-a-diplomacy-disaster-day
Yes TSB, lots of info out now about weapons sales by US,Brits, French, Germans and now Russians to Iran. The obvious reason for wanting war in Syria is weapons sales for the various sagging economies of the arms merchants. gwb
TSB: This O'Bagy person has been all over C-span and the militarism networks as an expert on the wonderful Free Syrian Army. It reminds me that part of the problem with Kerry and BS Biden is that they get their speeches straight from the propaganda department. Glad they caught her!
gwb http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/wall-street-journal-elizabeth-obagy-fired-96637.html
TSB: Your fans would love to see this picture on the most unbelievable headline of the week series... but we understand about the gods. gwb
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-11/which-john-kerry-said-following
Thanks James! C.C. is great! So many of those CW's will be going out the back door. I was thinking that Assad and Putin should say: "Ok US, We are turning them over. Roll your trucks in here and start hauling them away. The Syrian Army will protect your UN convoys. Take them back to the US where you have the facilities and destroy them properly. And you guys figure out how to pay for it!
Should only take 10 years." gwb
TSB: Pepe Escobar agrees with your view that the people who dreamed this Syria war are still on track to get it. (here) http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-110913.html
But what I really liked buried in this post is the evidence that refuted the idea that any airplanes actually hit the World Trade Center. (45 min presentation)
gwb
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rml2TL5N8ds
GWB: If we have to destroy those nerve gas munitions, we should share the pain with Putin. Neither the U.S. or Russia has yet fully destroyed the chemical weapons we each had when we signed a treaty to abolish them. Incinerating nerve gas is a tricky and expensive business.
Hey, on that Liz O'Bagy girl, I wish everyone would get off her case. She is only an over-promoted intern straight out of college doing her best to make a living. Where is our empathy? She's no more unethical than the older folks who own the thousands of Beltway Bandit firms - I mean, think tanks and public policy institutes - that make up most of the local economy here. I think she's our Marllo Thomas or Mary Tyler Moore, a plucky little girl making her way in the indifferent patriarchal world.
TSB: You are right that she is plucky and industrious, young, cute. So she got my attention but right away I started smelling propaganda and decided this was not going to turn into a long term relationship. I'm sticking with Pepe Escobar and Che Guevara!
ps: last night was the 1st time it ever occurred to me that maybe no planes hit the WTC. gwb
TSB: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/9/12/lac-megantic-traincarriedmislabeledcrudeoilsafetyboardsays.html
This Canadian oil is extremely explosive, cancer causing and you cannot clean it up when it spills. So they just label it as regular oil and hope they get away with it. That's why Keystone XL won't be built and tar sands is doomed.
(despite the regime's efforts to do it anyway) gwb
Don't forget Uncle Tonoose!
https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQLqEyaQySlzuRnMCdhlpR-hWHTvPoBvJntT3yQjvZ0wjs1dzwU9g
You're welcome GWB. I like his view points and he can be very funny (He's a Brit of course), be sure to read his "about".
TSB, GWB:
Since I'm in the pester with links mode, here's one last one for awhile.
http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2013/09/12/olympus-has-fallen/
TSB: I'll bet you have thought of this. Really bad crises in history are often preceded by 'peace agreements'. I think we just saw the preceding 'peace agreement' which stopped the US from going to war.. temporarily. It will take time for the 'Obama Doctrine' to recover and reload. Look for the real crisis in about a year. (Bears vs NeoCons) gwb
TSB: This looks to me like the best exposition of Putin's FP moves and also Obama's vacillation. What do you think? gwb
Putin eyes Obama's Iran file
By M K Bhadrakumar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-03-130913.html
TSB: Correct me if I'm wrong on this but this 'Shield Law' seems to me to make it perfectly legal to arrest Glen Greenwald and treat him exactly like Chelsea Wikileaks while he awaits trial and a life sentence for aiding terrorists???
I'd like to hear a discussion about how this law affects the Guardian. gwb
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-shield-law-20130913,0,4553946.story
James:I'll get to those hot links this pretty soon. Speaking of 'the links' I think we have arrived today at the 'Never Mind' moment on Syria and Obama will just play golf and let Kerry grow old in Geneva. Have a great weekend everybody! Go Seahawks! gwb
James: Uncle Tanoose!! Thank you. He was the first Arab character I remember seeing back in The Golden Age of TV, and a sympathic one, too. He's really all I remember from that show, just him and the scandalous sensation that Marlo Thomas never wore a bra (true fact).
GWB: The vision of Kerry growing old in Geneva is somehow just exactly right. BTW, judging by recent photos, it looks like the only chemical weapon he's taken from anyone is Botox.
Not so fast TSB! After just 2 days of high level diplomatique Sec. Kerry has reached an agreement to end chemical weapons in Syria!
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/09/14/222397967/u-s-and-russia-form-a-plan-on-syrias-chemical-weapons
Now if that isn't worth a joint Nobel Peace Prize I don't know what is. Could Hillary have ever pulled this off? No Way! Of course
the Syrians weren't consulted and the terms are laughable but hey, you do what ya gotta do and scram!
gwb... now off to read about uncle Touloose! gwb
" Marlo Thomas never wore a bra" god bless her! Now I shall have to do an internet survey for confirmation. Thou art diabolical sir!
BTW the picture is Uncle Tonoose's reaction to the news that he is Helen Thomas's escort for the night.
Just realized I got That Girl mixed up with Make Room For Daddy (AKA the Danny Thomas Show). MRFD ran from the 50s to the early 60s, while That Girl ran from the mid-60s to about 1970. Marlo Thomas might have appeared on her father's show as a kid, I suppose, but that would have been in her training bra days.
I googled Uncle Tanoose and found out the character was based on Thomas' actual Uncle Tanoose in Toledo.
http://www.toledoblade.com/frontpage/2000/03/28/Danny-left-his-heart-in-Toledo.html
Those old clips are funny.. especially Marlo! gwb
James, TSB. OMG! Obama going on the Sunday show on ABC? This can only mean one thing. He's been told to "get out there and 'Unbamboozle yourself' before Putin takes over Syria! If you don't do something or threaten to do something we're gonna have to send in Joe Biden." I'm waiting for the Navy sailors in the area to call a work stoppage in protest.
gwb
TSB, James: As you know TSB (the blog) is my favorite blog because it is the only blog I know that diplomatically allows radical comments and questions (no matter how stupid).
From the beginning I have been intrigued by how much work it takes to write and maintain a good blog while holding down a demanding job that you cannot talk about. So thanks for putting your talents to good work TSB! I'm sending you a free copy of my latest blog post from my secret blog: The Ancient Crumbling Pundit
(it takes about 3 minutes to read but it's brilliant!) gwb
http://ancientcrumblingpundit.blogspot.com/2013/09/why-911-conspiracy-theories-actually.html
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