Tag Archives: Iran

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March Madness

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Another good one from my friend and brother Marine, Greg. Thank you Greg. Yes March Madness is upon us in more ways than one. BTW, the Lady Vols won there first round. LOL. Yeah I know, my bride and I watch Women’s College Basketball. I get ribbed about that a lot, especially from the book’s editor, my best Marine friend, Dennis. He simply cannot understand why I watch the women play but not the men. Because watching 7′ giants beat each other up, while I can watch what basketball used to be many tears ago i.e., the Bulls in their heyday!

A March to Madness

By: G. Maresca

Not too long ago, March madness meant college basketball rather than nuclear brinkmanship.

By not winning quickly and outright in Ukraine, former Russian president, and prime minister Dmitri Medvedev, a Putin hand puppet, wasted no time threatening the West saying Russia could rip up its nuclear agreements. Putin endorsed such malfeasance by placing his nuclear forces on heightened alert saying we may face “consequences you have never seen.”

In doing so, Russia placed the once remote possibility that tactical nuclear weapons could be exploited on the battlefield making what was once inconceivable, anything but. Moreover, BCA Research set the odds of a “civilization-ending global nuclear war” over the next year at an “uncomfortably high 10%.”

Russia telegraphed their intentions when troops seized the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear plant that in 1986 produced the planet’s worst nuclear accident.

Russia is a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency where an attack against any nuclear facility committed to civilian power production is a violation of governance. This breach is also included in the United Nations Charter, and the Geneva Conventions.

Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility, Europe’s biggest, triggered a fire in the plant’s administrative building that fortunately did not affect the facility’s six nuclear reactors or produce a radiation leak. This flagrant assault was nothing short of a war crime proving that conventional weapons are far from the only option available in the Russian arsenal.

Putin made it clear for years what he intended to do given his invasion of Georgia and the Crimea proving he has no intention of stopping until his objectives are met. Having NATO intervene to defuse a nuclear disaster risks further escalation but at some point, may be necessary.

Provided Russia captures all of Ukraine’s nuclear reactors it would hold Ukrainians hostage by manipulating the energy supply where small armed detachments would protect the reactors is certainly strategically feasible.

No nation is sovereign without energy independence of which nuclear plays a major role.  President Biden voluntarily surrendered ours in exchange for Russian and Middle Eastern oil. American environmentalists approve of fossil fuels provided they come from such perilous places where tyrants like Putin are able to finance their evil.

Provided Ukraine’s nuclear facilities are unsecure, its spent radioactive matter will risk a nuclear catastrophe far beyond Ukraine’s borders. Ukrainians are diligently laboring in the middle of a war to keep the reactors safely operating – unsung heroes in a crusade teeming with them.  Ukrainians need an abundance of aid on many levels most especially securing their nuclear power plants and the radioactive material they produce.

Putin’s invasion is not just about returning Ukraine to the Russian fold, but a siege on the international order that for decades has worked to safeguard the peaceful use of nuclear power.

By closing in on Ukraine’s nuclear power plants that total 15 reactors at four sites, Russia rather than the contracted Westinghouse Electric, will profit from Ukrainian nuclear fuel that they had been supplying. What garnered little media attention is the fact that Westinghouse was in the planning stages to build at least five nuclear reactors in Ukraine over the next two decades. According to the World Nuclear Association, that enterprise is worth more than $30 billion for Westinghouse, an American company.

What kept nuclear war at bay during the longstanding Cold War era was M.A.D. — Mutually Assured Destruction. Both the U.S. and Soviet Union knew that any nuclear launch would be returned and annihilate both countries. However, it is another thing entirely to confront a potential nuclear conflict when one side believes it can win.

Russia is not the only American adversary that could employ its nuclear arsenal as a buffer for a conventional invasion. China is modernizing and multiplying its nuclear forces and covets Taiwan the way the Russians do Ukraine. Regarding Ukraine, the Chinese are trying to appear neutral, but in actuality are Russia’s co-conspirator.

The war raging throughout Ukraine should alarm the international community to reassess suppressing nuclear weapons. Failing to take heed to such a benevolent cause will lead to another and unnecessary nuclear arms race.

Add to this toxic mix, the nuclear starved Iranian mullahs – religious zealots possessed with an Islamic apocalyptic mentality – where “mutually assured destruction” is not a deterrent, but an incentive.

 

Originally posted 2022-03-20 14:58:36.

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Cubans – My Opinion

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Cubans Are Fed Up With Communism. Democrats Aren’t So Sure.

Folks, I have some personal knowledge about this issue — I’ve been there!  We belong to Faith United Methodist Church, Fort Myers, Florida. Two years ago I was offered an opportunity to go on a mission trip to Cuba, (pronounced as Ku-Bah with a short U). While I had been to Cuba a few times during my career, I was packing a weapon guarding Guantanamo, I had never been inside the country, or any communist country for that matter; therefore I jumped at the chance. No surprises.

I expected eveything I saw, except such severe rationing of everything. Cuba’s primary agricultural product is sugar cane, so why is sugar so tightly rationed?  It is exported, that’s how the country survives economically. Another example, here is the meat department in a  town’s local grocery store.

If you are not there at the very hour the meat is put out, sorry. This is what you will eat and what we ate everyday.

Everyone lives by needs only, not desires; there are no such thing as wants. Examples, what’s missing in these photos?

 

 

 

The passenger does not see when it is raining, one doesn’t need a toilet seat, and regardless how many outlets a light fixture has, it only needs one bulb to see.

Our sponsor was a district head of the local Methodist churches; fifty-six of them! There are literally 1000’s throughout the hinterlands. Plus, so many other denominations are there as well. After seeing how many of these  mission churches there are, I came away convinced it was only a matter of time when the population would become educated, God loving, and  wanting to fill wants, not just needs. That. my friends, is what I believe you are seeing now, and it will only get worse. The government “tolerates” these mission churches for they know they best not try to shut them down. Without them those in the hinterlands could not survive. In effect, these churches provide a service the government cannot provide, but you can bet their are a deep thorn in their side.

This trip  simply reinforced to me these liberals who tout socialism, need to go there. And I don’t mean Havana, go to the hinterlands where we went. But they won’t as they know better; they want the U.S. to be degraded to the level of Cuba

Just prior to our arriving Raul’s gay daughter wanted to get married. All the mission churches form all the denominations banded together and produced a petition stating they would not perform a gay marriage as it was against their religions. So in retaliation Raul cancelled all religious VISAS; therefore, days before we were to leave we had to change ours to a Visitors VISA, and when we arrived we had tell a fib and tell the very inquisitive custom agents we were there just to visit. We found this sign posted on the door of every church we visited.

She was married, but not by one of the mission churches. These churches have filled a vacuum in Cuba and their flock gets larger by the day

AOC and her band of swamp creatures need to go there for a real look-see, they “might” learn something but I seriously doubt it. The regime would not dare show them the hinterlands, but the folks out there are getting restless by the day and learning there is life out here in the world; they see it daily with all the many mission trips.

From the Daily Beast

Matt Lewis Senior Columnist

Done with being hungry, unemployed, without water, without power”—as one 88-year-old protester put it—thousands of Cubans are, after 60 years of oppression, taking a brave stand against an authoritarian regime quick to crack down on dissent. As unprecedented street protests aimed at Cuba’s vengeful Communist government have continued, here in the comfortable confines of American politics, the Democratic Party risks blowing yet another opportunity to seize both the center and the moral high ground at a time when those have been largely abandoned by the GOP.

Who or what is stopping them from simply assuming this position as America’s mainstream, majority party? A small, but young and energetic and growing band of activists with outsized influence who support radical causes like CRT, “defund the police,” and socialism. (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, like Bernie Sanders, prefers the label of democratic socialist.)

On important issues as diverse as crime and infrastructure, Joe Biden has had to walk the line between appeasing this base and delivering on his promise of being a centrist. The result tends toward a mushy compromise that is passable, but during a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday, he delivered. “Communism is a failed system—a universally failed system. And I don’t see socialism as a very useful substitute. But that’s another story,” he said.

Better late than never. The danger, as Marc Caputo warned, was that the president “could blow it by being too slow to move, too timid in his actions or by embracing the messaging from progressives who have been reluctant to denounce the Cuban regime in strong, unqualified and moralistic terms.”

Cuba is a wedge issue, and if you doubt this issue still resonates, think again. One of the reasons Biden became the Democratic nominee was Bernie Sanders’ past praise for Fidel Castro. Likewise, California Rep. Karen Bass’s 2016 praise of Castro (“the passing of the Comandante en Jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba”) helped scuttle talk of her being Biden’s running mate. She walked that back in 2020, but it was too little and too late to resuscitate her vice presidential ambitions.

That’s not one but two high-profile Democrats (one of whom came within a whisker of being his party’s nominee and still retains enormous influence) who had high praise for a Communist country and its bloodthirsty dictator. As much as the dark and authoritarian strains of America’s right-wing extremists have been rightly scrutinized, the left harbors its fair share of radicals.

For example, before Biden’s comments, Black Lives Matter (specifically, the group operating under that name founded by Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza) posted a statement blaming the U.S. government for Cuba’s problems that Cuban citizens are bravely taking to the streets to protest.

“Black Lives Matter condemns the U.S. federal government’s inhumane treatment of Cubans and urges it to immediately lift the economic embargo,” it reads. They are literally blaming America first.

To be sure, U.S. sanctions are squeezing Cuba (along with COVID and reduced support from Venezuela). But the fundamental problem is the communist system’s failure to deliver on its utopian promise by modernizing its economy. Cuba, not America, is responsible for the disastrous decision to develop their own COVID vaccine (instead of joining COVAX, the World Health Organization’s sharing program). By blaming America, progressives are parroting the communist regime’s own propaganda talking points even as lots of mainstream Democrats—like Rep. Gregory Meeks—are using the protests as an opportunity to call on the U.S. to end sanctions.

So why are they doing it?

Some of the radicals truly believe America is to blame. For others, it’s a political calculation. “There’s a concern by some in the party that if we condemn what happens in Cuba that we’re somehow making a moral judgment on the most progressive elements of our party who have described themselves as Democratic socialists,” z, a former Democratic state representative who is the son of exiles, told Caputo. “That concern about offending certain progressive elements in the party is why you see statements of the kind from the likes of Congressman Meeks.”

Squeezing Biden and the Democrats from the other direction, many Floridians are emotionally invested in these Cuban protests. “‘Where is Biden? Where is Biden,’ shouted Cuban-American demonstrators Tuesday in Tampa,” according to the Miami Herald.

This isn’t just a few protesters who can be easily ignored. There’s a good argument to be made that Elian Gonzalez defeated Al Gore in 2000. Since that time, though, Democrats talked themselves into the notion that Florida had changed, that Cuban Americans weren’t as important a slice of the Florida Hispanic community as they once were, and that younger Cuban Americans have different political sensibilities. Just as 2016 shattered notions about the “coalition of the ascendant,” meaning they could ignore working-class whites, this assumption about Cuban Americans seems premature at best.

A lot of emphasis has been put on Biden saying the right things, but while a Democratic president and party expressing solidarity with the protesters is helpful, it is not sufficient. The real test is action. One obvious thing America should do is open our doors to Cuban refugees, yet the Biden administration is warning that “if you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States.” Would the Biden administration really turn away Cubans fleeing persecution, and risk the political fallout that could entail? We may find out.

A more helpful and proactive idea comes from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is now calling on Biden to help restore Cuba’s internet access, which has been blockaded by the regime; this action alone would be instrumental in helping protest organizers and allowing the world to see any retribution. On Thursday, Biden gave a nod in this direction, saying: “We’re considering whether we have the technological ability to reinstate that access.”

Will Biden answer the call? His decision will have both moral and political implications. The stakes are high.

As Miami Herald columnist Fabiola Santiago puts it, “Before Trump, Cuban Americans twice voted for Obama. If Democrats bungle the bloodshed in Cuba, they will forfeit Cuban-American voters forever—and they will deserve it.”

I’m highly disappointed this article failed to touch on the effect these missions have had on the current state of affairs in Cuba. I firmly believe they are awakening the people.; I’ve seen it first hand. Oh and bear in mind they have yet to taste a Big Mac or a  Coke LOL. Is anymore wondering why Joey the puppet doesn’t want Cuban immigrants entering the U.S.? Who would they vote for? Go figure. 

In sum, Cuba is a country stuck in the 20th Century (1900’s), with a little 21st Century mixed in (2000’s), and a very small touch of the 22nd Century (2100’s). The more these missions provide of the  latter two centuries, the worse it’s going to get for the government.

Our Taxi.  By the way, he had a cell phone.

Originally posted 2021-07-17 16:11:27.

Current Events, Recent Posts

Back to Chinese Checkers

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LOL,  Can you name the above group?  LOL Another barn burner from Mustang. I just love this one! Read and enjoy, and if you like it go to his website and say so. He has a great website, well researched, thought out, and usually with a tad of humor, such as this one.

Back to Chinese Checkers

by Mustang

April 13, 2021 — bunkerville

A few interesting developments among the so-called China watchers.  There is nothing for you to do about this, of course, but I thought it would provide at least some amusement.  So, there is this fellow named Sandeep Dhawan who writes advice to the US State Department suggesting what they ought to do about China.  I’m sure the State Department appreciates this advice — the Lord knows if anyone needed advice, it’s the US State Department.  Sandeep’s bona fides include the fact that he’s a former commander in the Indian navy.  I found this curious, so I did a few minutes of G-searching and could not find one single incident where the Indian Navy ever distinguished itself in a combat role at sea.  Well, it may not matter.

Russia, India, and China

Sandeep is concerned because, as the United States withdraws from its foreign outposts, China is moving in to “fill up the vacuum.”  Moreover, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s latest visit to the Middle East seems to indicate (to Sandeep) that China is definitely “moving in.”  Now, maybe it’s just me, but … so what?  Yi’s vow to “work with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, UAE, Bahrain, and Oman to “help protect their core interests against foreign interference” doesn’t bother me in the least.  More to the point, if Iran invaded Saudi Arabia tonight at midnight, I couldn’t care less.  Remember, I have long advocated that the solution to the petty tyrants in the Middle East is to convince the Saudis that the Iranians are good to eat.  Sorry, my friends, but I don’t care if China spends all of its silver taels on Algeria, Egypt, Palestine, Eritrea, or on Huey, Dewey, and Louie.  In fact, I think China should spend all their money in the Middle East.  We American taxpayers need a break.

Note:  I wonder if China realizes that all those countries hate each other almost as much as they hate us?

What does concern me, however, is that given America’s hunger for Chinese-made plastic bowls, it will be OUR spending at Wal-Mart that will actually fund China’s mischief in the Middle East.  Painfully, we all know that the average female shopper at Wal-Mart would trade in her first born son for a set of eight plastic storage bowls if they come in multiple colors.  Yeah, patriotism is important, so long as it doesn’t interfere in plastic storage ware.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi are forming a mutual support arrangement.  They didn’t do this when Trump was president, of course … they know what a war hungry maniac Trump was.  But now that Joe Biden’s in the White House … well, off come the gloves.  Truly, this IS the danger of electing a nitwit to the presidency, and a former prostitute as his Vice … do you think anyone in the old country will respect America’s leadership, or will they take advantage of the opportunities handed to them by the American voter?

Note:  I don’t know for a fact that Kamala Harris ever was a prostitute, but that’s what Peter, who comments here, said — and it may all boil down to how one defines prostitution, but for the record I trust Peter, and this should go a long way toward reducing what I owe him.

But let’s be optimistic … even assuming that China and Russia “divide the world” among them, so what?  At some point in the future, the American dim-bulbs who voted for Biden will be called away and we’ll end up with a president with cajones.  After this new president nukes everyone one who is friends with China or Russia, the world will belong to us.  Then we can start fighting among ourselves, which is what we like to do almost better than anything (except Wal-Mart shopping).

LOL, What a great post for today, Thank you Mustang!!!

Originally posted 2021-04-13 14:39:04.

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At Age 34

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The following was an interview by Rona Barrett in October 1980 just over 39 years ago. He has not changed, except he became fed up that we never found one so he stepped up. Thank you Lord!

Question? Had he not waited for someone to step up and ran for office at 34 and was elected would this have happened? I have my own opinion, what’s yous?

Originally posted 2020-01-19 13:40:42.

Current Events

DID YOU KNOW THIS?

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I rec’d the following this morning from a Blog to which I subscribe (Bunkerhill – God, Guns, and Guts Comrades). It is a very informative, truthful, well-researched blog filled daily with astounding facts very few are aware of, and this morning’s is a whopper. Today’s blog references an article from The Telegraph, the British News Service, dating back to 15 July 2015. The piece was written by Mr. Con Coughlin, the paper’s Defense Editor on the Iranian Nuclear Deal.

Obama’s Iran deal has just granted an amnesty to the world’s leading terrorist mastermind.

As head of the Quds Force in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Suleimani is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading terrorists. Now Barack Obama has effectively granted him an amnesty.

By , Defence Editor

2:03 PM BST 15 Jul 2015

Qassem Suleimani, the head of the elite Quds Force in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, fully deserves his reputation as one of the world’s leading terrorist masterminds.

For a decade a more he has been the driving force behind an array of Iranian-sponsored terrorist groups, from Hizbollah to Hamas, which have orchestrated a reign of terror throughout the Middle East.

From a purely British perspective, he was responsible for training and equipping the Shia militias in southern Iraq who killed scores of British troops during the dark days of Iraq’s sectarian conflict following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and was reported to have trained the Taliban in the art of making deadly roadside bombs that killed and mutilated our Service personnel serving in southern Afghanistan.

So you can imagine my amazement when, leafing through the more obscure annexes of President Barack Obama’s “historic” deal with Iran (page 86 of the annex, to be precise), I found that Mr Suliemani – as the White House no doubt now refers to him – has been granted an amnesty and taken off the list of proscribed Iranians – together with a number of senior members of the Revolutionary Guards.

Thanks to Mr Obama’s scandalous capitulation to Tehran, Mr Suleimani has overnight gone from being one of the world’s most wanted terrorists to the White House’s newest best friend.

This is just one of the many troubling indications contained in the detail of the accord struck in Vienna between the P5 +1 and Tehran – that’s the official line, of course. The reality is this shoddy deal was worked out between the ayatollahs and the White House, with countries like Britain – which used to take a robust view of Iran’s endless procrastination on its nuclear activities – left impotent on the sidelines.

Another example of the craven concessions the White House had made to Tehran is the way future inspections will handled. Iran’s disinclination to make full and transparent disclosures on its nuclear programme is well-documented. Given the opportunity to cheat, they will do so. Which is why inspections by qualified teams of nuclear inspectors is so important.

Only from now on the onus will be on the West to make the case that Iran is not playing by the rules by handing over its intelligence to prove so. For under the terms of the accord, we must “justify” the need for inspections, which in effect means handing over all the intelligence we have on Iran’s illicit activities. Of course Iran has been desperate to find out how Western intelligence learned about the existence of nuclear enrichment sites like Natanz and Fordow and, if we comply with the requirements set out in the accord to the letter, this is what will happen, with all the implications that will have for all our sources who risk their lives to tell us the truth about what the regime is up to.

If I were Suleimani, I’d be organising an enormous party right now to celebrate a deal that is truly a “historic victory” for Tehran.

Should you not believe Mr. Coughlin, you may read the entire piece of trash (below) forced on America by a Muslim loving, narcissistic, incompetent POTUS and brokered by his  communist, lying, POS posing as his Secretary of State.

I don’t know about any of you, but I did not know any of this at the time, but there should have been some honest, caring , patriotic Americans at the time who should have been knowledgeable enough to raise holy hell. Now that we have killed the POS someone finds out he was given free reign to do as he pleased by our own hand. Did any of our illustrious MSM take the time to read the entire transcript or did they simply assume if it was brokered by the “Messiah,” it had to be a good deal. Our elected officials, and all the departments of government involved in over site and justice were obviously asleep at the wheel.

What have we become? Sheep!!!

Originally posted 2020-01-13 09:40:26.