September 11, 1973, a tragic day for Chile.  A CIA-engineered coup brought Augusto Pinochet to power.  Following in the steps of Nazi-lover Stroessner in Paraguay and blazing trails for Argentina’s military junta, the Generalisimo was evil incarnate.  His and his evil twins’ fascism in southern South America set a new standard for torture and killing.  If there is a Catholic hell, he is probably the Devil’s right-hand man.  As in Argentina, everyone that crossed his regime was declared a communist or Jewish terrorist, brought up before a military tribunal, if they were lucky, tortured in jail, and dumped into mass graves with other bullet-riddled corpses.

During most of the second half of the 20^th century, anti-communist paranoia reigned supreme in Washington D.C.  Starting with McCarthy, many politicians made their names by jumping on the anti-communist bandwagon.  Nixon made his name in trumped-up proceedings in Congress, playing his anti-pinko cards just right to eventually become president.  The Dulles brothers ruined the Middle East for years to come.  Reagan became famous by running actors out of the country and nearly destroying the University of California.  If you questioned American foreign policy, you were declared a puppet of Moscow or Peking.  Many progressives, myself included, learned to keep mouths shut and eyes watchful.  Anyone to the left of the Rotary Club was a bleeding-heart pinko communist.

(more…)

I’m not referring to a mathematical conjecture like Fermat’s last theorem (this was proven by Wiles and Taylor, by the way).  I’m referring to presidential mettle and resolve and the current debate on whether Mr. Obama has them and should tout them, and whether Mr. Romney ever can have them.  Let’s face it:  Mr. Obama’s mettle and resolve are proven; Mr. Romney’s are not, beyond his desire to do something his father never could do.  While Mr. Romney has tried to belittle the leadership role of his opponent in saying that even Jimmy Carter could have killed bin Laden, the question still remains whether Mr. Obama should brag about it.

(more…)

It’s Saturday, December 31, 2011, and Mr. Obama has just given a New Year’s gift to terrorists.  Barack, the Avenger, just became Barack, the Santa Claus, with respect to Mr. Karzai and his entire corrupt government.  And Mrs. Clinton, his head elf, just goes along with it.  The Afghan leader, who knows he sits on a powder keg, is trying to make peace with the Taliban—our foreign policy gurus just helped him along the way.

Come on, Barack!  The friends of my enemies are my enemies—the Taliban showed their true nature many years ago.  They gave safe haven to al Qaeda members and terrorized and killed their own people.  They have killed our soldiers and civilian contractors whose only crime in that God-forsaken land was to work for the betterment of the Afghan people.  They have falsely accused men under their strict Sharia law and beheaded them.  They have stoned women who have been raped after accusing them of adultery.  They have killed girls whose only sin was wanting to study.  In brief, the Taliban are a blight on humanity, a pestilence that Pandora could have never imagined.

(more…)

I don’t like to gloat, especially in these circumstances, but I told you so.  The U.S. government, through the loose lips of Mr. Mullins, has finally spoken the words—Pakistan is playing a duplicitous role in the war against terrorism.  This was no secret, at least not for me.  All the evidence was there.  Every sane person on the planet knew this was happening, but no one in officialdom would or could admit to it.  Why do you think we went after OBL without telling the Pakistanis?  Why do you think they shouted “foul” at not being told?  The claim that the spy agency is helping terrorists is no surprise.  What is a surprise is that the Afghan government is so weak that the spy agency’s bloody fist can strike all the way to Kabul and the U.S embassy.

(more…)

I’m referring to the Doomsday Clock, of course.  Last time I checked it read six minutes to midnight.  The case of the hikers in Iran and that country’s constant saber rattling might change the clock.  The instability in Pakistan and that country’s increasing animosity towards the West also might change the setting.  Al Qaeda threats, especially those related to revenging the death of OBL, are also a factor.  Add in then tensions between Pakistan and India and the posturing of North Korea, just to name a few hot spots in the world, and one can see that life was much better with the old U.S.S.R. and the Cold War, at least in some sense.  The West had thousands of warheads pointed in its direction, but only one enemy.  Now we’re not even sure who our enemies are!

The proliferation of nuclear arms is akin to a schoolyard of kids who each receive an automatic to play with.  Too many countries and citizens of those countries treat nuclear arms lightly now, like schoolchildren with their video-games education.  Even here in the U.S. (and we should know better), crazies that believe in Armageddon and Rapture have even infiltrated the U.S. Air Force, the very organization in charge of our atomic arsenal (see “The Theology of Armageddon” by Robert C. Koehler, 9/15/2011 CommonDreams.org).  It turns out that in a Vandenberg Air Force Base course titled “Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare,” the organizers wanted to give officers in the first week of missile-launch training a religious indoctrination in “Just War Theory,” often called “Jesus Loves Nukes” by its detractors.  Officers of numerous faiths complained and the course was canceled, one small victory for sanity.

(more…)

Some news about three of my favorite duplicitous countries:  (1) The Pakistani spy agency has been implicated in the murder of journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad.  Yes, these are the same guys that arrested the people who helped us send OBL to hell where he belongs.  They’re also the same guys who knew where he was all the time.  (2)  It turns out the Afghan police (army?  it’s hard to tell in a Third World country) were incapable of putting down the attackers at that hotel in Kabul.  They needed the help of NATO attack helicopters.  (3) The Saudis have purchased some special tanks from German companies.  These tanks are equipped with special crowd-control features.  Is Angela Merkel and her government embarrassed?

(more…)

(Bob Nesoff, Spyder Hole, 2011, Strategic Publishing Group, ISBN 978-1-61204-044-8)

This book offers yet a different take on how to combat terrorism: employ special forces and international collaboration.  (I read the trade paperback version—e-book versions are also available.)  In my own book The Midas Bomb, in John Betcher’s The 19^th Element, and in David Fett and Stephen Langford’s White Sleeper (I reviewed the last two books for Book Pleasures), the military plays second violin to civilians and local and federal authorities.  Bob Nesoff is a former Army Green Beret sergeant, so he follows the adage to write about what he knows.  I’m happy that he did—this tale about the dangers of nuclear proliferation is a thriller filled with military command-and-control suspense that will give readers another enjoyable roller coaster ride.

(more…)

I’ll give retrograde conservatives credit—they always seem to be more focused than liberal progressives.  In fact, the general fickleness of liberal progressives is often amusing.  Already they are screaming “Chernobyl!” and “Three-Mile Island!”  and “Down with Nuclear Power!” when just months ago they were wringing hands about the oil spill BP caused in the Gulf of Mexico.  You can’t have it both ways, folks.  One example taken from Dave Lindorff, Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist, says it all—his ThisCantBeHappening.net article is titled “The Idiocy and Hubris of Engineers” and comes down hard on GE and their reactors.  Mind you, Mr. Lindorff has no scientific or engineering training and quotes only so-called experts that support his agenda—apparently idiocy and hubris are contagious?

(more…)

Before Libya and their insane and murderous dictator started grabbing all the headlines, the Pakistani government’s treatment of Mr. Raymond Davis was news.  First, the media in our country lamented that the Pakistanis arrested someone with diplomatic immunity.  Second, we suddenly saw an about face when reporters discovered that Mr. Davis is really a contractor with the C.I.A.  To these mentally challenged members of the Fourth Estate, I say: so what?  Nearly every embassy and consulate of every industrialized nation maintains spies working undercover as diplomats.

(more…)