[Duffelblog] FORT BRAGG, N.C. -- As the Army's latest round of troop cuts gains momentum, the service has tried to foster a new culture of voluntary quitters with the new "Army of None" and "Be Small As You Can Be" marketing campaigns, it was announced today. Snark on the lame, no longer used, Army catch phrase "An Army of One" which was used to describe the individual soldier. "Even though most soldiers were afraid for their jobs at first, the idea of a completely self-imploding Army is starting to resonate with the resentful guys we're already kicking out," Army Un-recruiter Staff Sgt. Michael Dietrich said. "The long-term goal is to get our volunteer force back to pre-1776 levels."
For the most part the "Army of None" concept has not been effective at all, as all 40,000 of the troops in the first round of cuts have no civilian potential and left the armed forces against their will. Dietrich says the un-recruiting campaign is not to blame. "The slogans and posters are doing as good for the draw down as they do for preventing rape and drunk driving in the Army."
Dietrich pulled a stapler from his ACU backpack while he unrolled another poster. "We really want to capture the feelings of abandonment and lost legacy in this approach," Dietrich said while hanging up an un-recruiting poster of a rifle leaning on a tumbleweed with the slogan "Army Gone" superimposed. "If I had my way, nobody would ever be here to even see this poster."
In place of soldiers, Congress has asked the Army to maintain a fleet of attack drones. "Without any human pilots, we've moved on to drone-piloted drones," House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price said at a recent press conference. "We've asked them to assign quality-control drones to make sure nothing goes wrong with the pilot drones and the drone drones."
Price sees it as a matter of numbers. "Sure, the Department of Defense is firing thousands of servicemembers, but the budgets have really been slashed. It's the only fiscally logical thing to do. As a nation, we have to cut down on defense spending to focus on creating jobs, especially in the departments that hand out benefits to poor people."
The Army is not the only branch to suffer. Leaders have now been obligated to cut 99% of the manpower in the Air Force, Navy, and Marines in hopes of one day fielding the F-35 strike fighter.
My inbox is full of emails touting Donald Trump's "Time to Get Tough" book, now with Rush Limbaugh's endorsement. He blames most of America's problems on a "tidal wave" of illegal Hispanic immigrants and unfair Chinese trade practices. He reminds me of H.L. Mencken's classic one-liner: "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong." One might add, "dangerous," because Trump appeals to our desire to blame someone else for problems we created. If you want something to worry about, have a look at the math questions that Chinese high school students have to answer to qualify for college admission.
Let's review the facts.
Immigration from Mexico actually fell after the 2008 crash, mainly because construction jobs disappeared.
The best data we have suggest that net immigration from Mexico was negative between 2005 and 2010--that is, more Mexicans left the US than arrived. Hispanics, to be sure, are more visible in the workforce--their share of total employment has risen from about 14% 10 years to to 17% today--but that is due to the natural increase in the Hispanic population. In 1990, non-Hispanic whites had a fertility rate of 1.7 children per female, vs. 2.9 children for Hispanics. This bumper crop of Hispanic children has been entering the workforce for the past several years. But that has nothing to do with recent trends in immigration.
As for China: During the early 2000â˛s, US imports from China were growing at 20%-30% a year. Since 2011, imports from China have hardly grown. That's because China's currency has appreciated by one-third since 2005 (from 12 cents to the dollar to 16 cents), making Chinese goods pricier in the American market.
That's not what we ought to be worrying about.
China is graduating twice as many PhD's in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) disciplines as the US. China's economy is way behind the US, but catching up fast in key areas. Chinese missiles can sink any US aircraft carrier within a range of several hundred miles from its coast. China can knock out American satellites. Chinese computation capabilities are on par with America's. China has more industrial robots installed than any country in the world. China is about to become the dominant producer of Internet communications equipment (with Huawei replacing Cisco as the global market leader). China and its periphery manufacture everything that goes into American tech products.
America used to have disruptive, innovative tech companies. Now we have corporate giants run by patent trolls rather than engineers whose mission is to suppress innovation. Apple, a design company that relies on Asian production, now accounts for two-thirds of all profits in the S&P 500 Technology Sub-Index.
America used to have nonpareil defense technology. Now we are betting the defense budget on the F-35, a plane like the proverbial horse designed by a committee, and sold by defense industry lobbyists.
Ronald Reagan knew that America's edge in defense technology also translated into an hedge in civilian technology. The Defense Department stood godfather to most of the major innovations of the 1960s through the 1980s, from lasers to computer chips to the Internet. His Strategic Defense Initiative helped convince the Russians they couldn't compete with us. Back in 1983, I was a junior researcher crunching numbers on defense spending and productivity for the then head of plans at National Security Council, Norman A. Bailey. Why do you think China decided to break with Russia and support America de facto during the Cold War? The answer is simple: China respected and feared America's technological prowess.
Yes, I'm for tough enforcement of immigration laws. I want a long, tall fence on the Mexican border. But Trump deserves a Darwin Award. If we obsess about Mexicans and Chinese microwave ovens, we're going to lose, and lose bigtime.
[DAWN] FOR over three decades now, the twin plagues of sectarian terror and religious violence have caused immeasurable harm to Pakistain's social fabric, taking thousands of precious lives and causing evident fissures within society. Two words: Binori Mosque.
Much of the blame for this falls on the state for either promoting ideologies that have nurtured extremism, or for looking the other way as violent actors with unabashedly toxic agendas have caused havoc in society. Two more words: Lal Masjid.
Indeed debates within and between religions have been taking place for centuries, but in today's Pakistain belonging to the 'wrong' sect or religious group can have dire consequences, thanks to the space provided to krazed killers.
The state has made a few attempts to reverse the tide of intolerance, with mixed results. Among these efforts have been attempts to foster interfaith dialogue along with bringing Islam's different schools of thought together on one platform. Two Three more words: Darul Uloom Haqqania
On Tuesday, the federal religious affairs minister organised a conference in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... which brought together clergy and representatives from different faith groups.
Participants of the event discussed the problems faced by minorities in Pakistain, as well as ideas about how to alleviate these concerns.
Earlier in the week, the minister -- in a written reply to a politician's question in the National Assembly -- said his ministry was taking various steps to tackle sectarianism in the country.
These included forming a committee on sectarian harmony, holding conferences and naat competitions, as well as issuing a uniform azan calendar for all sects to follow in Islamabad.
While all the aforementioned steps may be commendable, it is essential to ask how successful similar efforts have been up until now in tackling intolerance and promoting harmony.
For example, are the warm, positive messages espoused at such interfaith meetups and intra-religious events filtering down to the preacher in the neighbourhood mosque?
For it is here where matters are most sensitive, where loudspeakers can easily be misused to foment trouble and which need to be monitored particularly.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/30/2015 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] ALL eyes are once again fixed on Pakistain, the centre of gravity for insurgencies in several parts of the region, as a peace broker in Afghanistan. As government and Afghan Taliban representatives convene for a second round of talks on Friday, some confidence-building measures (CBMs), including a possible ceasefire, are high on the agenda.
In fact, the Afghan government had broached an immediate truce at Murree on July 7. The response from Taliban interlocutors, who had agreed to cease fire if Pakistain and China guaranteed the creation of a broad-based government in Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... , offered some cause for cautious optimism.
Both Islamabad and Beijing are ready to go the extra mile if the parties involved green-light their role in a comprehensive settlement. The controllers of the process, while gingerly paving the way for progress towards ending the conflict, will obviously eschew dictating terms to the parties.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/30/2015 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] TODAY Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... owes the country an answer to this simple question: what exactly was all that sound and fury last August all about? If the matter had been little more than angry speeches and walkouts from parliament we could have shrugged it off. If it was loud pressers and hostile talk show appearances, we could have accepted it. Imran's got serious egg on his face, even in a country chock full of egg faces.
But no. In the name of their grievances, they laid siege to the capital city for months and caused a totally unnecessary delay in the visit by China's president, who wanted to announce $46bn worth of investment projects for the country.
They called for a tax revolt, arguing from their container-tops that there is no obligation to pay taxes to a government that the PTI has deemed illegitimate. They called on people to not pay their electricity bills, threatened to cut power supply from Tarbela dam (as if that was within their power to start off with), and urged resort to illegal hundi channels for all cross-border foreign exchange transactions, in order to squeeze the country's foreign exchange reserves and thereby push it towards default.
They briefly shut down the two largest cities in the country, Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... and Lahore, causing billions of rupees in loss to traders, and interrupting the movement of vital fuel supplies. Investment decisions were postponed, board meetings of important foreign investors were disrupted, and one CEO of a large multinational even took the highly unusual step of going public with his concerns (CEOs are usually a very cautious lot in terms of what they say in public).
Don't damage Pakistain's democracy story he warned, it's the best thing happening in the country currently. "Some of my Pak friends do not appreciate the enormity of this transition and what it means," he said, referring to the first historic democratic transfer of power in the country's history.
"[W]e need stability in the system, people to follow the rules laid down to obtain their demands, not a revolution or any other yearning for 'discipline' that comes from outside the system created by the Constitution.
"What I see happening in Pakistain today worries me because if people on the streets can start calling the shots, then it would negate the positive story of Pakistain to possible investors" from all around the world.
It's hard to underline how unusual it is for a CEO, particularly of a multinational company, to write words like this in a public forum, but that was the level of the anxiety that the dharnas created in the minds of investors.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/30/2015 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] AFTER the judicial commission's decision in favour of Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... and the 2013 caretakers, on the grounds of not proven guilty, it is time for political parties to move away from cliché-ridden rhetoric and concentrate on substantive issues related to electoral reform.
Before we examine the decision of the judicial commission of inquiry into the 2013 general election, it is necessary to examine the question whether the judiciary should at all be asked to decide political matters. Pakistain's political parties have often sought relief from the judiciary against political setbacks, because the grievance arose from a particular interpretation of the Constitution. The scope for discretion in interpreting the basic law, and what constitutes the national ideology or public interest, helped the judges to rule against the complainant-politicians, except for the 1994 restoration of the Nawaz Sharif government.
The judiciary's pro-establishment verdicts have had three unwelcome results. First, they have conferred legitimacy, partial at least, on extra-constitutional and usually indefensible political developments, eg, the Tamizuddin and Nusrat Bhutto cases. Secondly, such verdicts divide public opinion; selfish elements are ready to defend even outrageous formulations. And, thirdly, an adverse judicial opinion curtails the aggrieved party's capacity to agitate the issue further. Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who is the lightweight's lightweight... is the latest victim of all three consequences of seeking judicial relief in a political quarrel.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/30/2015 00:00 ||
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[Investors Daily] It came two days after the announcement of the nuclear agreement with Iran, yet little mention was made on July 16 of the 70th anniversary of the first nuclear explosion, near Alamogordo, N.M. The anniversary underscored the agreement's attempts to thwart proliferation of technology seven decades old.
Nuclear-weapons technology has become markedly more sophisticated since 1945, but not so sophisticated that nations with sufficient money and determination cannot master or acquire it. Iran's determination is probably related to America's demonstration, in Iraq and Libya, of the perils of not having nuclear weapons.
Critics who think more severe sanctions are achievable and would break Iran's determination must answer this: When have sanctions caused a large nation to surrender what it considers a vital national security interest? Critics have, however, amply demonstrated two things:
First, the agreement comprehensively abandons President Obama's original goal of dismantling the infrastructure of Iran's nuclear weapons program. Second, as the administration became more yielding with Iran, it became more dishonest with Americans.
For example, John Kerry says that we never sought "anywhere, anytime" inspections. But on April 6, Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser, said that the agreement would include them. Kerry's co-negotiator, Wendy Sherman, breezily dismissed "anywhere, anytime" as "something that became popular rhetoric." It "became"? This is disgraceful.
Verification depends on U.S. intelligence capabilities. And as Reuel Marc Gerecht says in the Weekly Standard: "The CIA has a nearly flawless record of failing to predict foreign countries' going nuclear (Great Britain and France don't count)."
In the 1960 campaign, John Kennedy cited "indications" that by 1964 there would be "10, 15 or 20" nuclear powers. As president, he said that by 1975 there might be 15 or 20.
It is a law of arms control: Agreements are impossible until they are unimportant. The U.S.-Soviet strategic arms control "process" was an arena of maneuvering for military advantage until the USSR died of anemia.
Might the agreement with Iran buy sufficient time for Iran to undergo regime modification? Although Kerry speaks of the agreement "guaranteeing" that Iran will not become a nuclear power, it will. But what will Iran be like 15 years hence?
Since 1972, U.S. policy toward China has been a worthy but disappointing two-part wager. One part is that involving China in world trade will temper its unruly international ambitions. The second is that economic growth, generated by the moral and institutional infrastructure of markets, will weaken the sinews of authoritarianism.
The Obama administration's comparable wager is that domestic restiveness will subvert the Iranian regime. The median age in Iran is 29.5 (in the U.S., 37.7; in the European Union, 42.2). More than 60% of Iran's university students, and 70% of medical students, are women. Ferment is real.
In 1951, Hannah Arendt, a refugee from Hitler's Germany, argued bleakly that tyrannies wielding modern instruments of social control (bureaucracies, mass communications) could achieve permanence by conscripting the citizenry's consciousness, thereby suffocating social change.
The 1956 Hungarian Revolution changed her mind: No government can control human nature or "all channels of communication."
Today's technologies make nations, including Iran, porous to outside influences; intellectual autarky is impossible. The best that can be said for the Iran agreement is that by somewhat protracting Iran's path to a weapon, it buys time for constructive churning in Iran. Although this is a thin reed on which to lean hopes, the reed is as real as Iran's nuclear ambitions are apparently nonnegotiable.
The best reason for rejecting the agreement is to rebuke Obama's long record of aggressive disdain for Congress -- recess appointments when the Senate was not in recess, rewriting and circumventing statutes, etc.
Obama's intellectual pedigree runs to Woodrow Wilson, the first presidential disparager of the separation of powers. Like Wilson, Obama ignores the constitutional etiquette of respecting even rivalrous institutions.
The Iran agreement should be a treaty; it should not have been submitted first to the U.N. as a studied insult to Congress. Wilson said that rejecting the Versailles Treaty would "break the heart of the world."
The Senate, no member of which had been invited to accompany Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference, proceeded to break his heart. Obama deserves a lesson in the cost of Wilsonian arrogance. Knowing little history, Obama makes bad history.
#1
Unfortunately the current RINO Senate will back Obama on this or any other misdeed as history has proven. I see no indication or prior action to think otherwise. Note: money has been release, prisoners released.... The deal is already approved.
by Michael Ledeen A taste:
[PJMedia] Most of those trying to stop the approval of the Iran nuke deal are going about it all wrong...
I think most of those trying to stop the approval of the Iran Deal are going about it wrong. I don’t believe you can stop this thing by going through the text and pointing out its myriad flaws, nor do I think it’s good enough to expose the many lies Obama, Kerry, Rhodes et. al. told us along the way, nor even to uncover secret deals. Kerry and Zarif spent 27 hours alone during the negotiations, and we’re not going to get a transcript of those conversations, nor will either of them tell us what they may have agreed. And even if they did, I don’t think it would produce enough public political rage to stiffen the wobbly spines of our elected leaders.
The critics are quite right for the most part: it’s an awful agreement, the administration has behaved abominably, and the deal should be rejected. I’m just talking about the best way to do it, the best tactics to use. Obama understands how to do it: reduce the issue to a simple choice. He does that when he says that Congress must either approve the Grand Bargain or plunge the Middle East–or is it the world?–into war.
We should answer it: Iran has been at war with us for 36 years, and this deal–the latest of its kind–gives Iran lots of money to kill even more Americans. Indeed, we’ve been doing it for quite a while.
In a single phrase: the war is already ON, and we’re paying the Iranians to kill us. You want to pay them even more? Apparently that’s what Obama wants.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/30/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Obama wants, there's a deal killer.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/30/2015 0:19 Comments ||
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#3
Obama surrendered but Iran will take the money and not accept the terms of the surrender and continue the war. Congress appears fine with this approach, may even point out the economic stimulus of a new arms race.
#4
I just finished writing to my Senators and Representative regarding the "deal." I only wish I had read this PJMedia article first. The phrases: The phrases: "the war is already ON, and we’re paying the Iranians to kill us. You want to pay them even more? Apparently that’s what Obama wants." Certainly gets to the nub of the matter.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/30/2015 8:56 Comments ||
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#7
The trick is to use small words.
Posted by: Matt ||
07/30/2015 9:14 Comments ||
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#8
Why is this 'deal' not considered treason?
Because, though it's difficult to stomach when a leftist holds the office and engages in acts of utter stupidity such as the present fiasco, the President has rather extraordinarily broad powers to conduct the foreign policy of the US. See e.g., Bill Clinton's signature of the Kyoto Accords which would have had the effect of devastating the US economy.
Besides, criminalizing the official acts (no matter how stupid) of our domestic political opponents (no matter how cretinous) is far into Banana Republic territory. Granted we're already 99% Banana Republic but ....
h/t Instapundit
...The real story is not that poor Cecil was tragically shot. It's that western civilization, specifically the younger generations, have lost their collective minds and do not have the mental faculties to be adults, let alone adults in the free world. They are effectively zombies. And there is no reasoning with them.
#4
Personally I'd like to hear from Team Hyena on this.
Posted by: regular joe ||
07/30/2015 12:19 Comments ||
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#5
Don't worry, John, I'm sure they'll wait until after a couple dentists from Wisconsin are killed before we all find out what really happened with the lion.
Here's an interesting factoid you might want to consider: most large wild cats are eventually killed by other large wild cats. You'd actually have to know something about large cats to know that, instead of just "loving" them.
#7
NOT familiar wid "CECIL" - in my childhood it was the TV show DAKTARI's "CLARENCE THE CROSS-EYED LION", IIRC a spinoff of JOHN WAYNE'S POPULAR "SAFARI" MOVIE of the time.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[DAWN] FOR over three decades now, the twin plagues of sectarian terror and religious violence have caused immeasurable harm to Pakistain's social fabric, taking thousands of precious lives and causing evident fissures within society.
[DAWN] AFTER the judicial commission's decision in favour of 
