SOMALIA
National Security Advisor John Bolton was fired. I can’t but wonder how that neocon lasted as long as he did on President Trump’s staff. All he ever wanted was a war – or wars. And not because America needed to go to war, just because of a sort of (near demonic) bureaucratic bloodlust. As you will gather from those comments, I wasn’t one of Bolton’s biggest fans. You’ll note that Bolton never, ever volunteered to be on the point of the kinetic spear…no, that’s for the little people, the expendable people in the national chess game that Bolton wanted to play.
One of the things I like best about President Trump is his aversion to throw people into a meat grinder in some distant land where their deaths are meaningless. Those of you who have read this blog for any period of time understand that I have no problem with war. But let it be necessary, not frivolous.
John Bolton was pushing for massive troop deployments in Somalia, among other things. He’s gone now and that won’t happen for the next four years of the Trump Administration.
Now, the mail
LindaG – Informative update. Thanks, as always, LL.
Just sharing the word, LindaG. The mainstream media is mute on so many topics, except for their undying hatred of President Trump (MAGA/build the wall/lock Her up).
Old NFO (the training advocate) – It’s not. And SNFL ‘should’ take out any/all pirates and use NGFS to take out the bases. Don’t waste an airplane and bombs. Sailors need practice too!
Pirate enclaves do need to be leveled, and nothing does that quite as well as B-52’s. However, recognizing the need for gunnery practice, I’ll make you this bargain. The Navy can bombard from the littorals, and perhaps the B-52’s can saturation bomb exit points beyond the range of Naval gunfire. In the spirit of joint operations, of course.
WSF – Thanks for the reply. We have a Somali population in Colorado, centered around the Denver suburb, Aurora. Very tall, thin people and arrogant in the extreme. They dominate the taxicab business at DIA. Some are employed in the meat packing industry where they cause problems.
The Somalis are a deeply ungrateful people, with egos that don’t match their ability. I’m sure that they could be trained to drive a cab or to butcher a hawg (Islam notwithstanding), but I wouldn’t trust those immigrants with anything more complicated. If they were to construct a bomb, it would have to be a simple one.
CAPT Fast – As to “the country is not worth the price of a single nuclear weapon” I think as a Aurora resident,I would establish a “go-fund-me” site to enable the use of perhaps a small Nuclear Weapon, say 0.75Megaton range. Even support the Navy delivering it.
Somali and Ethopian residents here just don’t want to get along. the somai’s would fit right in Chicago.
The Navy, naturally steps up to fund the nuclear weapon, encouraging the general public to help in any way they can (Bravo Zulu). It’s what we Navy types do. As a 1300, we prefer to take them out more personally, but NAVAIR certainly should get the right to drop the weapon on Mogadishu if they started the Go-Fund-Me initiative.
Maybe it could be pointed out to the Somalis living in Colorado that a bigger and more beautiful world awaits in Illinois, and in Chicago in specific. You could get crowd funding for the relocation campaign as well.
Mike_C – It’s fascinating that there seems to not be even rough consensus on how many Somalis are in Minnesota, or even in the US. Wikipedia leads one of its entries with “74,000 in Minnesota”. FactCheck (it’s just a name duh; kinda like Honest Herman’s Fine Used Cars) assures us that it’s MUCH lower, and that claiming the number to be north of 70k is an attack (racist of course) on President Obama, PBUH.
You’re right. Even questioning or attempting to quantify the number of Somalis in the US (potential terrorists all) is impossibly racist. The next thing that you’re likely to demand is that Rep. Omar (D-MN) remove her turban. Oh, the horror.
Now personally I have no idea exactly how many Somalis are in MN, or the US, but it would be safe to conclude that whatever the true number is, it is certainly excess to requirements. I’ve traveled to MSP/Twin Cities a few times this year on business, and was fascinated to note that even the wealthy, educated/credentialed, generally liberal, overwhelmingly white people I was meeting were noticing that there is a problem with all the Somalis. Of course they glance over their shoulders first, then hunch over and speak rapidly in a low voice. Then they look around again. The tradecraft is terrible.
They’re liberals. They usually either speak in uneducated terms reserved for University terms or in a country club accent reminiscent of Thurston Howell III (see Gilligan’s Island). They’re entitled, elite and better than you. Thus they feel no need for any sort of soto voce tradecraft.
CAPT Fast – those would be remarks by the “unarmed citizens”?
Of course. They have bodyguards. No need for guns in the hands of the great unwashed. I think that’s what Lord North said about the colonists back in the 1775 timeframe. As I recall, the march to Concord (like a picnic) was a lot more fun than the march back to Boston. Somebody ought to explain that to Beto, the fake Mexican; Liz, the fake Indian; Julian Castro – with a last name that speaks volumes; Kamala, the fake black woman; and Yang (polling somewhere south of .75%). And the effite Butt Guy who had the gall to wear a Navy uniform (disgracing us all in the process).
The New Battle for the Atlantic – Mail
LSP – Interesting. Does the Russian navy pose much of a threat? I’m guessing (totally) that they wouldn’t but for the absence of European naval power. Britain, for example, made a bold call for an island nation, getting rid of its navy. But let’s not forget, all the Moslem votes don’t come cheap, y’know.
My sense is that the Russian Navy has nuclear missiles that work. Putting them onto submarines provides them with silos that are very difficult to kill in a first strike against Russia. The Russian Black Sea Fleet (protecting waters that they view as ‘home waters’) is effective against potential regional threats. Russia is a regional power and if we are speaking of defense, it’s capable. It is no longer a world power nor is it capable of projecting military power with its navy beyond its region in any meaningful way.
Russia has a GDP of $1.578 trillion (2017), which is just about half of that of California. And Russia is NINE TIME ZONES LONG. That alone says a great deal about what they’re able to do. They have problems that keep them occupied on defense, and they can poke the US in the eye with a stick from time to time.
Ed – Having a son who is a COB on a Virginia Class after serving for years on 688s, in the area you describe, it irks me that most of what I know I got from Blind Man’s Bluff 🙂
I look forward to reading this.
No, I still don’t have Chrome. It requires me to drive for an hour, sit for an hour or so and I haven’t been well. Kidney stone issues. So I’m not completely housebound, but we all have our crosses to bear. If I felt better, I’d be in China right now.
Congratulations to Master Chief Bonderenka for a career of service, and to you for raising him. I am one of those people who believes that there are two types of ships – subs and targets. I’ve ridden on 688’s, 637’s, as supercargo, and some repurposed SPECOPS boats. That was then and this is now. Things have come a long way since I was doing those things.
Dan – Russia is taking advantage of the fact that most NATO members in Europe are busy committing economic and cultural suicide. Without the threat of US involvement Russia could, even in its diminshed state, pose an existential threat to Western Europe. Their surface navy is a shadow of it’s former self. And while they are starting to reconstitute their submarine force it too is anemic. A naval war in the Atlantic that did not include the US woul be a toss up. The reality is that without nukes Russia is a third class economy with a third class military. The problem is almost all of NATO has neglected their forces and are also at a third class level. The USA is the 800# gorilla on the planet with China working hard to catch up. EVERYONE else on the planet….minus nukes….is almost irrelevant outside of local abilities….as in Iran in he Persian Gulf. In the Pacific Japan and Australia have small but meaningful capabilites but aren’t a major consideration anywhere but the Pacific.
I agree mostly. The new Russian submarines are good for what they do and for where they do it (North Atlantic, Arctic and Bearing Sea down to the Sea of O and the NORTHPAC. But it’s a regional presence and is almost completely defensive. Offensive military operations (outside of a nuclear conflict) would see them losing boats that are needed to protect their boomers in the Arctic.
Kle – Russia is only an existential threat in the nuclear arena.
Other than that, they’ve become sort of vastly feeble in time with most of Europe (France and Italy are still at least trying to take Defense seriously). Russia hasn’t even managed to knock over Ukraine; their chances against what’s left of Europe are poor indeed.
Of course, we should really have 3 Heavy Divisions in Poland, that would put the kibosh on Russian dreams of European adventures for sure.
It would be vastly embarrassing if the Russian Army had its ass handed it back by the Poles. Russia is a regional power and so is Poland and the Poles have been preparing for a defensive war against the Russians. They’d rather do it with American help and we’ve been forward deploying (and rotating) armor and anti-armor rotorcraft into that region for a few years now. Russia takes note and bristles at the thought, but there’s not much that they can do…or want to do really. As I noted in my reply to LSP (above), their GDP and their size as a nation limit their options.
I’m one of those people who believe that we have a lot more in common with the Russians than with a lot of our ‘allies’. So you can have at me for that if you wish. The Democrat/mainstream media Russia hoax has strained relations and options that we could exercise in our common interests. I believe that, along with the coup attempt, had deeper and more sinister implications in which internal US plots, and not Russian plots, were at work. Sure, the Russians engage in propaganda campaigns as a matter of fact. We do the same to them, all of the time. It’s Spy vs Spy.
We engage in espionage against them and they do the same thing. Despite popular art and films, it has been a generally gentlemanly game. They don’t kill our people and we don’t kill theirs. We didn’t in the days of the Soviet Union, either. If we stopped, would they? That’s the $64K question. I don’t think that we could. And neither could they. We do it because we like to do it and it’s a multi-hundred billion dollar industry in the USA.
demand is that Rep. Omar (D-MN) remove her turban. Oh, the horror.
One exists – her arrest photo.
Good riddance to Bolton, he was scary in some of the s**t he tried to pull with JCS. And I'll go with your trade off. 🙂
I kinda liked John Bolton, because the Democrats hated his guts. That is usually enough for me.
No argument about the Russians being a lot like us.
The problem is getting through their cultural neuroses long enough that they might realize they'd like to be friends.
I'm all for the US being friends with anybody who actually means it, and letting bygones be bygones. Blood feuds never accomplish anything good.
-Kle.
Most people seem relieved Bolton's out. I'm one of them.
I think we missed a golden opportunity with the Russians. its sad that politics killed it for both our people….Bolton is a traitor in my book and should have be shot in the public square, along with Hillary and the rest of her posse. the Russians could have helped us with china, just as my stepfather predicted when I entered service long ago, though I thought him stupid at the time…..get well soon.
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