Cuba: The Anaconda Plan
The Trump executive order on May 1 broadened existing U.S. sanctions on commerce with Cuba to include “any foreign person” operating in the “energy, defense and related materiel, metals and mining, financial services, or security sector of the Cuban economy, or any other sector of the Cuban economy.”
(photo – left – stolen from EdB)
Shipping of goods from China would be most impacted, the sources said. Northern Europe and the Mediterranean would also be severely impacted, the sources added, though all global shipping to Cuba would be affected.
One key consideration in the suspensions, the sources said, was rooting out any shipping to or from the communist-run island and linked to Gaesa, a sprawling business conglomerate tied to Cuba’s military that has been heavily sanctioned by the United States.
The same U.S. executive order earlier this month prompted Canadian miner Sherritt International. To withdraw from its nickel and cobalt mining operations in Cuba after decades of investment.
The shippers’ decision, first reported by online media outlet CiberCuba, would be devastating for Cuban imports critical to keeping shelves stocked with provisions in a country already racked by shortages and rationing.
The sources said several options were on the table for Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM. The shippers could decide to permanently halt shipping to Cuba, or alternatively strike a deal with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, allowing them to continue shipping only to Cuba’s private sector.
Bullet Points:
** Negro teen take-overs? That’s why there are police. If cities have a problem, there is a solution.
** The PRACTICE of medicine. Nobody said that practice was perfect. That’s why they practice. (Not Surgery with BRM)
** Chicken feet – it’s what’s for dinner.
** Is it possible for human men to date demon females? No, not really. Don’t think of experimenting. Ben weighs in.
** Christmas Eve 1144 – God WILLS it! It’s time for another crusade…
** X-Land? The changing face of Canada.
** Best jurors? You be the judge on this one.
** When Tokyo burned. March 9, 1945
** Sometimes all you can do is scratch your head and ask, “Really?” (h/t Claudio)
Stay or Go?
CDRSAL thinks that the US should call it a day in Iran and go home with a patrolling force in the Gulf. I take his point, but before we leave, we need to destroy their oil-exporting capacity, their bridges, and their power-generation capacity. I realize that once we’ve done that, the leverage we have for a negotiated settlement will be gone, and so will the bulk of the US military in the area. Israel can keep dropping ordnance on emerging leaders, and the UAE and Saudis can bomb them as well. If the UAE wants to invade the Gulf islands before we go, we could certainly provide top cover for that sort of thing.
The Duellist Series
The Confederate Cipher, Hudson’s Scouts, and The Crow Creek Expedition will be followed by Vengeance and Retribution.
The Crow Creek Expedition begins with a massacre and ends with a prophecy.
There is something intoxicating about a secret. Fraternal societies base their rites on symbolic rituals that take initiates on a journey from darkness to light. Secret societies tend to do the opposite, accentuating the darkness of combinations and conspiracies designed to do harm. Specific handshakes (grips), words, and signs are used to identify members whose oaths are backed by the promise of retributive bloodshed if they are revealed.
When the book ends, President Abraham Lincoln has 118 days left to live.
Identify the Ship
1
2
3
End
(1) Russian FFG Admiral Gorshkov.
(2) Soviet Moskva class helo cruiser Leningrad.
(3) Soviet Kirov-class BCGN Frunze.
– Kle.
Outstanding, Kle.
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That’s high praise (Confederate Cipher) coming from you. I’m glad you enjoyed the book. The series twists and turns with what I hope is an interesting fourth book, as well.
The Hudson story has been great! I’m looking forward to the next installment.
Just finished The Confederate Cipher. As others have said, it was outstanding.
I will go post some reviews when I have the energy to screw around on Amazon.
– Kle.
Identify the Ship:
1. Russian frigate Admiral Gorshkov
2. Soviet helicopter carrier Leningrad
3. Soviet cruiser Frunze
Indeed. Take out the power plants, bridges and destroy the oil island. But do not forget the airports, ports, water treatment plants and any desalinization plants plus all dams. If you’re going to attack someone, don’t Vietnam it by going in slowly and having the White House janitor pick the targets. Go full on Roman rules. Destroy the economic engines 100%.
“White House janitor” is a delightful description of LBJ, one of the best ever. I’m-a steal that one. Thank you for that, you have made an old man very happy!
If it takes some patience to avoid condemning a large population of Persia that is innocent of the machinations of the regime that took over their government and is looking to the United States for help in getting under the thumb of that regime, then I can be patient. As much as I’d like this to be over with as soon as possible.
Tehran’s water is stored behind 5 dams. All but one reservoir is completely empty. The remaining reservoir has about 10% capacit going into summer. Turning Tehran or Esphihan into Carthage in any sort of timely way would require nuclear weapons. I think that demolishing Qom is more realistic, and there is a lot of symbolic value in that.
The fourth book “Vengeance and Retribution” is anxiously awaited. What will become iof the Indian women’s prophecy?
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Top art work. Really good today. I’m seeing a new series on Netflix. An old early version robot android, a young smart vixen, and an old CIA whore team up to save the planet each week.
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Cuba. You’d think at a certain point they’d just throw in the towel, demand casinos, cruise ship docks and alcohol and then they’d surrender.
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Iran… don’t forget to arm the Kurds to the teeth along with a way for them to export their oil and natural gas.
The principal character in Vengeance and Retribution is Sleeping Wolf (Wolf-who-pretends-to-sleep). I’d be happy to write the series, but Hollywood would make the robot a tranny or something. The Kurds are spending a lot of time fighting each other for tribal dominance at the moment.
we already did. it was supposed to be passed on to the iranian resistance but they crawfished the deal n kept the arms, pissing off the one benefactor they had. not a smart move.
RR – The Kurdish tribal factions are challenging to deal with. One of the big sticking points is the Iranian Kurdish cultivation of opium that needs to go to market as heroin. That’s their cash crop, and the Iraqi Kurdish Talibani faction (in Sulaymaniyah), who supports them (in a way), has a cracker in the heroin soup – both facilitating transfer and in refining from raw to #3 or #4 heroin. The Barzani family, which controls the KRG – for the most part – is heavily supported by the US and don’t play that game but the Peshmerga is comprised of Talibani and Barzani. Sticky wicket.
Teenage Neanderthals Running Amok:….aaand the Democrat ‘officials’ – who created the opportunity for said yute’s to wreak havoc at ill – scratch their heads wondering how this could happen, then, like Whatshername Handler, blame PDJT.
Sidebar on the ‘teenage’ thing, yesterday the media (all of them) described the two mosque shooters as “teenagers”, continually. They are 17 & 18. Last I checked this was ‘young adult’, both are HS graduates. Since they offed themselves we won’t have another drawn out ‘Luigi’ despicable mess on our hands with lawyer maneuvering to avoid an actual speedy trial. (Incidentally, what happened to Charlie Kirk’s assassin, assuming he is the actual assassin?)
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That photo of PDJT pretty much sums up the man when in ‘don’t screw with me’ mode, and despite a few hiccups, the best modern President who handles our adversaries with aplomb, has avoided three attempts on his life by his haters and the cheaters who can’t win honestly, three times jail through lawfare garbage, and is doing all of this for the benefit of We The People. More Of That Please! And God speed.
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As others have said, really enjoying the new artwork trend.
The police are capable of cleaning up these woke messes if you install leadership capable of directing the clean-up and hire the right people. They need prosecutors and courts willing to convict and a prison system that puts them “at hard labor” rather than just lying around buggering each other.
i have to wonder about the “racial purity” angle from a guy named velasquez, and the other guy looked tranny. convenient they offed themselves. any connection to the austin joyrider shooting? we’ll never know.
They did the “right thing,” but yes, there are questions that could have been answered.
ALL of these shootings are connected somehow, we’ll likely never know. Kirk’s assassin (again, like Oswald, assuming he did the deed) is unobtainium lately, Healthcare exec murderer, the Austin 3…a long list. What are we up to 30 or so if one includes tranny shooters? These are all connected, minimally pop psyche/angst-driven hopelessness foster in our youth by The Enemy Within who see them as useful tools to generate anarchy.
I think that the evidence against Kirk’s murderer on trial provides proof beyond reasonable doubt to a moral certainty. More on that tomorrow on the blog.
Agreed, yet beyond what PDJT and his Team say I have a healthy skepticism to anything being pushed by government…local, state, or federal. For decades, with an ever-increasing intensity, everything they suggest or state as fact is suspect as far as I’m concerned. Oh, and when out and about don’t forget to stay 6ft apart to keep yourself from getting germs…😡
Caleb Vazquez looks mystery meat-ish. But a “Latin” surname could well be attached to an actual European. Maybe the probability is low in this fallen world, but it could happen. A dear friend of mine from residency training is called Lopez, and she is not at all shy (or PC) in making it clear that “Not everyone called Lopez is a Mexican. I am a white European. I am NOT one of those people.”
It’s not that she goes around making a deal about this (like a vegan or a cross fitter can’t shut up about their cultish identity), but Freya help the fool who calls her a Latina, or the wicked idiot who suggests she needs some DEI set aside for the lame and retarded. Needless to say, we get along great.
Spain (Lopez) is part of Europe. So is Portugal (Lopes). I know European people from Spain and Portugal and they don’t (necessarily) identify with the people from distant lands that their ancestors conquered or the locals with whom they miscegenated. There are many formerly enslaved people who at one point or other took on the surnames of their masters and that appropriation does not confer DNA. At the same time, it’s unfair to blame those living souls who resulted from genetic blending that we may or may not think was appropriate. Massive foraging armies criss-crossed the planet as a matter of historical fact, blending their DNA over many thousands of years. The story of humanity is the story of migration because of war, in search of natural resources at times of famine or draught, etc.
This morning Kim du Toit has a (typical Kim destroy the premise) commentary that aligns with what you to said. His is regarding a certain law professor named J. Janewa Osei-Tutu (apparently a fe-mal-lee’) who says in her [now published…gawd, that make it credible] paper “Protecting Cultural Personality” in Race, Racism and the Law, (typical university gogglygook) that everything in our culture is “collectively held cultural identities” and continues on to suggest that those come from African origins therefore copyright laws should be expanded to include her mental masterbation.
More BS from an overeducomeated delusional who should go back to her country of ‘origins’, where mud huts, spears, and poverty abound. Oy vey.
I wondered where that picture went. I looked around and it was gone. At least it was used in a good cause.
Does it make sense to destroy what the civilian population needs to survive? If they were in the streets calling for “Death to America” I would say yeah, go ahead but all I’ve seen is demonstrations against the regime. We don’t need to break the will of the people to support the regime like we did in Japan. Continue the destruction of any and all military targets of course but water plants, bridges, airports and ports? Who hurts the most from that? I think we need to support the people and their efforts to confront the regime, not give the regime propaganda bullet points. But I’m just an old BT so what do I know?
IMHO, bridges are military targets, as are airports and seaports. Bridges and rail links allow Iran access to goods from China, Russia, and Pakiland. The only oil ports of consequence are at Karg Island. Runways that service large aircraft should be cratered, for the most part. Iran should be quarantined to the extent that a bombing campaign can do that. I did not say that the people should be starved. Some runways should remain operational to enable humanitarian relief once the IRGC is no more. The same applies to some of the non-oil ports. They can pay (with oil) for some sort of Marshall Plan once the IRGC is gone. How that happens is very complicated. There are 90 million people in a large country. Destroying their energy infrastructure should do most of what we need to do if we can limit their ability to import overland. It will never be 100% but 90% would be sufficient.
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Iran accounts for a lot of the world’s oil. I think we should shut off that tap. The larger question in my mind is Iraq, which is emerging as Iran-Lite. Keep in mind that I’ve been in Baghdad and Erbil within the past year advising, and I’m quite familiar with the situation there, which is tippy. ISIS is re-emerging (Sunni), and the Shiite Militias there are significant. I know that the US government is concerned about cutting off the Iranian Hydra’s head just to have it emerge in Iraq. We’ve fought two large wars there in my lifetime + small wars against ISIS, Wagner, etc.
i don’t see the iranian people ever standing up. they missed the boat, voluntarily it appears.
The bazaar is waiting to see which way to jump. They want a strongman to follow.
Teen take over, thugs, carjacker, etc. These are all euphemisms for—well, you all know. This is one of the reasons I left Cleveland 49 years ago. I grew up in the inner city and worked there as a telephone installer/repairman after leaving the Marine Corps. I was always around that element. Most everybody was respectful and polite. Black parents would chew your ass if you got out of line and don’t even think of dating or hanging out with a black chick. Daddy would set you straight.
Demonrat policies, welfare, and family breakdown are the root causes of problems today and they are not going to be fixed anytime soon.
Magnificent history lesson on Japan. Hard to believe there are 37 million today. That’s more than Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada combined.
The democrats broke the backs of many if not most traditional black families. Add drugs and it finished it.
Jurors. Funny you should mention. Got called to duty just last month for district court over in Ft. Worth. Second time, got lucky again, case dismissed. Texas recently raised the cutoff age from 70 to 75. Right. Raise the age into the geriatric crowd, many of whom are unable to serve for age related reasons. IMHO, they are having a hard time finding qualified Jurors in the younger generations.
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As for myself, I have made it to the jury box in my younger days. When asked, explained that I was a licensed FFL with a significant customer base in the LEO/First Responder community. Defense counsel — “Would the court please thank and excuse….”
I guess what you say makes sense. I hate to see the Iranian people suffer but the world would suffer even more with the Mullahs having nukes.
As long as you brought up Iraq, let me ask you this.
Would Iraq look different today if we had stayed there in force instead of 0 pulling us out so he could proclaim he ended the war? Like our occupying Japan until they got their shit together. Would we have been enough of a stabilizing influence to counter the radicalism of ISIS and the rest of the jihadi BS?
I was around when the projections were made by the CIA (policy support agency, not policy making), and they told the White House that stabilizing Iraq would require 250,000 US soldiers on the ground for a minimum of five years, with decreasing numbers. It could have been paid for with oil revenue, but it was politically unsustainable. The Executive office said, rewrite their laws (which we did and they’re still in English & Arabic), tell them what to do, and we’re outa here. Then we came back to fight ISIS and on and on and on and on.
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Saddam Hussein was the hedge against Iran. When you took him off the board, Iranian influence flooded Iraq, and we stood far off and said, “Isn’t that a shame?” It was absolutely predictable, and George W. Bush folded it into our “war on terror,” except that Bin Laden had exactly 0 to do with Iraq War II. Iraq War II enriched a lot of NGOs and US corporations while removing Hussein. Did we need to do it? No. But George Bush wanted to be a “War President” very much. And Iraqi oil continued to flow, supporting the world’s energy supply.
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Miker, that part of the world is very complicated. I understand most of it, which means I know the law of cause and effect is magnified there 1000%. When you do this, then that will happen. The history goes back to ancient Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and the empires that are now dust – but the same people are there. The same tribal mindsets are present. Explaining mindset requires years of study, and even then, you’re going to miss things. Add Israel, China, Russia, Pakistan, the Magic Saud Kingdom, the UK (which still has disproportional influence), and the US, and you’re in a tinderbox primarily because the world hasn’t made the shift to nuclear energy to supplant ABUNDANT oil.
Takeovers – I believe in treating riots like riots, and rioters like the vermin they are.
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Iran – I am usually in pretty close agreement with Cdr. Sal, but I am much closer to
LL’s assessment in this case. The biggest problem with Sal’s idea is this – we have 51 Burkes,
which means that unless we are on a full war footing forces surge, we can have 17 at
work on the seas at one time. If we’re going to “patrol” the Gulf, we need 3-5 Burkes,
and we need another 3-5 around the Straits of Obock. We’ll also need a couple hundred
fixed-wing in theater and probably a flat-top Amphib, and an attack boat. But those are probably
just going to be there, anyway. There should really be some LCS to run interference for the
Burkes as well, they are basically perfect for a bunch of the secondary missions involved, but
that doesn’t really matter because most of them never do anything useful anyway.
Do we really want to commit a third or more of our *deployable* surface fleet to running
around the Arabian Peninsula for the foreseeable future?
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I think we should pound them hard for another month or two, and then leave, and take everything
that doesn’t just live in theater anyway. Unless they surrender – in which case we can give talking
another shot. I don’t mind leaving them *some* internal rail and highways and even an airfield or two,
closely monitored. But all links to outside get cut and re-cut. Get rid of their petroleum industry and general
power grid. I see no reason they should have boats. Definitely large commercial ships need to all go,
but I would just say everything. Fishing boats, pleasure craft, tugboats, if it floats it dies. America
owns the water, get bent. I also heartily endorse flattening Qom. I would hesitate to kill the desalinization
plants, though… maybe I am just a big softie.
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The Kurds… are the Kurds.
Yes, the world has spent centuries shitting on them, and yes I am sympathetic,
but some of their problems are of their own making
– Kle.
In normal weather patterns, Iran has plenty of snowfall in the winter and abundant water going back 5000+ years – maybe 11000 years to the end of the last ice age. Not now.
Iran
Making sure the mullahs can’t make their own nuke or have enough money to buy one I support. Otherwise, let Southwest Asia keep on doing what they have done for centuries. We don’t need to be the fool who tried to hurry the East.
Cuba
Until we curb our own communists we likely won’t demolish theirs. Keep it from becoming a base for our enemies and let them starve. As my Dad would say, “If you are hungry enough, you will do anything”.
If the US finishes the basic demolition and UAE/Israel, etc. keep up precision bombing as needed, the bazaar will be forced to select a moderate, IMHO.
Looking forward to the new book!!!