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Photo courtesy of the EPA.
That would be my advice. Truth is, we quickly make Russia into a demon. They do the same to us. If there is anything we have learned over 100 years since the Great War started in August 1914, it is that going to war, should be the last resort…
Back in the early ’90’s upon being given the privilege to look over the Soviet’s intelligence when Communism fell, we were shocked that all their aggressive actions were seen in their eyes as defensive moves against possible aggression being planned by us….It is best represented by a young officers story from the cold war. I’ve long forgotten the source, if it comes up later I’ll tag it in…
But a young officer was in charge of a section of the German fence, and on his first shift, received a request for orders and told the reconnaissance brigade to go 5 more miles along the fence past where they usually turned around. They called back to say they’d stumbled on fresh movement of troops being maneuvered to that gap on front line we never had bothered to inspect.. After finding our troops were now outnumbered by their new response, this young officer ordered another brigade to move up from the south. That brigade also discovered another large number of troops moving in from the eastern reserves to that same point… The officer began to sweat. Was he witnessing on his watch, in his territory, the beginning of the long-feared invasion of Western Europe by the Soviets? He called up two more brigades and ordered them to dig in around that point. The Soviets brought up tanks, and lined them up for an invasion… The young officer then picked up the phone… Far away, the head of command looked over all the evidence… Finally he gave this advice… Pull your troops out, by ten miles…. he did, and the Soviets pulled theirs back as well. Ok, came the next order. Resume normalcy. And soon, everything again was routine….
For those that don’t understand war, the point of the story was, that the young officer caused the crises. The whole Russian buildup, was because of him. He made a move the Russians didn’t understand, and since they didn’t understand, they prepared for an attack. As we brought up more, so did they. They were simply matching our moves… Fortunately someone wise enough to understand that he Russians really didn’t want to go to war, stepped in and averted a possible WWIII start-up incident…
As if on cue, already dumb John McCain is rattling swords and demanding we nuke Moscow. Soon Lindsey Graham will follow as Tweedle Dumb always follows Tweedle Dee… Likewise, Putin will also have his exact same crowd (probably riding Harleys), his group of idiots, clamoring for war as well…
The Western press has already begin its war talk, leading with the condemnation of the Russian Government… But really, isn’t that a bit premature? No one has died. Far less than anything that happened in Kiev earlier this week….
Let’s wear Putin’s shoes for moment….
What if the predominantly Mexican population of San Diego wanted to be aligned with Mexico instead of the USA, all because we couldn’t get Republicans to pass immigration laws.. What if they gathered en masse in San Diego to protest, stayed, burned down government and private buildings. What if we tried to make them stand down, and it roused up even more Mexicans to their defense. What if the Mayor fled to Yuma, and camped out in a sanatorium. … …
What would the US do. OUR entire Pacific Fleet rests in San Diego… We would probably act prudently. and move outward to expand our perimeter. We would probably commander all airports and ship docks in that area in order to be able to land reinforcements if necessary. We would probably park a couple of gunboats facing the city as an intimidating force reminding the Mexicans we had forces they couldn’t get to, so their behavior should keep that in mind. We’d probably block access roads leading into the port, so an invasion army wouldn’t be able to charge in unannounced…
Just to play devils advocate, what might happen if we took no action to defend ourselves? As most Americans are asking the Russians to do? We saw the Mexicans had little respect in town for law and order. There are a lot more of them than there are of us… What if 10,000 of them just walked on to the base, armed with shotguns, hunting rifles, and a few semi automatics. What if they boarded all our ships, our subs, and put our sailors at gunpoint into the brig, and announced they were in charge of the Baja Mexican Navy… Now the 2nd largest navy in the world. What would the US do? Would we sail into our own harbor as did the Free French and blow what used to be our own ships up out of the water?
Of course the Mexicans would say we are invading their new country. Of course every Spanish tonged nation South of our border would be condemning us for invading Mexican California… despite the fact that a lot of gringos, maybe even a majority, live around San Diego and support our American troops being there and keeping the masses of Mexicans from turning on them….
Point is, we would ourselves, do what Russia just did...
So how can we condemn them, when we have contingency plans to do exactly the same thing?
There is further evidence this is not like Sudetenland, . One, no one has died. It was a smooth peaceful quiet takeover, textbook by American Standards. Two, action is isolated to the port and Crimea. Three, all evidence points to these actions solely for the purpose of controlling access to the base.
As Americans we would laugh at Europe, Russia, and China telling us to abandon San Diego. There are a lot of similarities between that and the Russian base. The number one move now appears to be: for the Kiev Ukraine government to insist that the base will forever stay Russian, and guarantee the safety of all Russians living on Crimea… Second, it should state that the current administration insists there will be no change for those who like having Russians close by. For that select group, there will be only two options. Life goes either goes on the same; or it gets better. The third option that it may get worse, is forever off the table.. .
It would be the equivalent of that American young officer calling off his men, and telling them to retreat backwards 10 miles.. it would be the opposite of what happened 100 years ago, where threats begot threats and soon rigid plans took effect and not one leader had the chutzpah to stop it from going forward. 6 million soldiers died, 15 million civilians died, and a whole generation of young men was wiped out. Girls had to marry men their father’s age.. and in the end Western Europe’s borders were right back where they were before the whole event started.
Cool heads must prevail. Of course the McCains will spout off. They don’t matter. What matters is that we treat the Russians with respect just as we would like them to do for us, if the shoe were on the other foot and we were fighting the battle of San Diego…..
80 percent of the cost of treating victims of gun violence in 2010 was borne in part by taxpayers, according to an analysis of hospital and insurance data.
Hospitals in the U.S. spent $630 million in 2010 treating the victims of gun violence, two dollars for every man woman and child in America. The Medicaid costs of gun violence alone that year amounted to approximately $327 million. Private insurers, and hospitals eating the cost of the uninsured, made up the remaining $403 million.
The average cost of a hospital visit for a gun violence victim is $14,000 more than that of the average hospital stay.
But is the hospital cost the only cost to society? It appears no. Gun violence cost the US $174 billion in 2010. The societal cost per firearm assault injury (includes workloss, medical/mental health care, emergency transportation, police/criminal justice activities, insurance claims processing, employer costs and decreased quality of life) … was $5.1 million for each fatality and $433,000 for each hospital-admitted patient. You as a consumer pay this cost in everything you buy; it is added in. Put in perspective that amounts to $522 dollars for every single man, every single woman, and every single child in America.
How can we save ourselves this money? How can we stop the majority of gun violence? Very simple. Register every gun to an single owner so if a gun is used to kill, someone gets held responsible. Very simple. Registering hurts no one; your car, your house, even your vaccinations are registered for example.
Isn’t it horrible we are having a big battle over something as tiny as registering a fire arm which over a decade has cost every man, woman, and child $5,220 dollars? Over “registering?” We’ve lost our senses.
Americans are paying dearly for the “privilege” to keep a gun that is non-traceable. By registering all firearms and thereby being able to keep guns out of those who would use them in criminal actions, great savings can be saved for all the millions of the American people.
We did, we almost won this with the first wave of the attack; we did far better than we expected; we suffered no causalities. Time to launch again for 2014. The truth, and money, both lie flatly on the side of registering all firearms…
Goal should be: if you are not an upstanding citizen? No Gun. Period.
Let us start here. A good leader takes his people where they want to go. A good leader does not force his people to go where they definitely don’t want to go… That is ruling. Not leading.
A good leader convinces his people why they must do something. He makes sure he puts in how it will benefit them. If it doesn’t benefit them, he is ruling. Not leading.
A good leader creates good out of evil. There is a moral equivalency to leadership. It can be defined shallowly at times. Such as calling Hitler good leader based on his strategy of conquering France. But time makes such affirmations short lived. I don’t think anyone looking over the rubble left of Germany in 1945 at that moment considered Hitler a good leader after viewing his legacy.
A good leader does not follow the rules… He decides when and where the rules apply. Some would apply the name “great leader” to one who never wavered. Well, such a leader would have ruined the life of a little boy whose grandmother sent along a knife to cut the cake, not knowing that knives in school were grounds for expulsion. A lot of misdirected people in leadership positions in that particular school district, made bad decisions based on their mistaken view of what makes a good leader. A good leader does not always follow the rules.
A good leader decides when and where the rules apply.
In Syria we have controversy. We have one argument stating that Syria must be punished. We have the other that says War must be reserved only for something Huge. That “Huge” is of course undefined and fits in with “we know it when we see it.”
As the executive of the world’s largest force, militarily, economically, and morally, our president pretty much get to decide.
Here is what a great leader would do. He would find a way to unite the two sides into one… He would find a way to punish Assad of Syria in a way that would scare any other despot thinking of using chemical weapons, and do it without going to war.
That would be great leadership.
So what would scare Assad the most? It’s hard to tell, but my guess is that his biggest fear as a man, is if his palace is overrun by Syrians, who basically tear him apart, and do his wife and children, then systematically erase any acknowledgement that he or his dad ever existed… That whole reign of terror becomes ridiculed, laughed at, for the rest of History. i would guess that is how you could get to Assad.
So, we, (not just the US but the rest of the world) have to make that threat real.. We don’t have to carry it out necessarily, but we have to make it real. How can that happen?
I think first, is that we make crossing the border out of Syria a real good move for Syrians… Send the signal, that if you leave Syria, the world community will settle you somewhere, give you a job, and a chance to begin a life of freedom and prosperity. ideally what we are doing is a Cold War. Over time we are saying: “See how great the Rest of the world lives? Oh, you poor Syrians… Escape and come join us”. Where could we relocate them? Iran could step up, Jordan,, and Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States,
This is how your hurt Assad… Turn his own people against him… No ruler can rule a group of people who don’t want to be ruled. He can use brutality to a certain extent, but the numbers are completely on the side of the population wanting him gone. With our intelligence capacity, he will never be safe… Every bodyguard is a potential killer..
And that, more or less, is what we should do… It is what a great leader does… He solves problems in ways where the evil get punished and the good win out.
Going to war, rewards those doing evil, and hurts the good….
It is time our President, become the great leader. Not by digging down and reinforcing the costly methods promoted in the past.. But to devise and implement new methods which because of their success, will be utilized far into the future….
“Let’s face it the quality of this site (Delawarepolitics.net) leaves much to be desired. Still, it is reflective of the state of the GOP in this state….”
I know that is not how the comment was intended…. but that is how it came out….
Love good comments.
Screech…. Stop…. Whoa, there… Did that just happen?
Did someone just mention George W. Bush?
In the heat of the campaign, there has been no mention of the two term predecessor, who left office just 2 years plus, ago…. However, the president previous to this unmentioned two term republican,… yeah him? Remember that one? The one who was only the second president to ever be impeached? The one who actually had some type of sexual experience in the White House with someone other than his wife, the one who despite that, still left office with a 66% approval rating, the one who gets called back to each convention for a keynote address?
But until now, no one, not one person during the campaign, has dared whispered the words to muddy the waters with memories about George W. Bush… Not even Voldermort’s name was muttered less….
WE all know why…..
So why would anyone vote to continue that legacy in November? The only reason is because of a monstrous vacuum in the media, one that allows one-sided arguments to go unchallenged across it’s pages and its airwaves….
“Republicans talk a lot about losing their way during the last decade, and when they do they’re talking about the Bush years,”— Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont-McKenna College.
Rick Santorum told CNN on Sunday that he regretted voting for the No Child Left Behind education law Bush championed.
In a presidential contest dominated by concerns over the weak economy, government spending and the $15 trillion federal debt, the Republican candidates have been loath to acknowledge the extent to which Bush administration policies contributed to those problems. Republicans also controlled Congress for six of the eight years Bush was in the White House, clearing the way for many of his policies to be enacted.
Remember, Republicans inherited a surplus when they took over power. First thing they did, was blow it with a tax cut costing $1.8 Trillion. Then, they funded two wars on borrowing, so the wealthy wouldn’t have to pay any more in taxes, costing everyday Americans, $1.4 trillion… Then the Bush Gift to pharmaceuticals which gave seniors prescriptions to be funded by borrowing, put another $1.2 trillion. Compared to the Bush cumulative damage, $4.4 Trillion, the Obama TARP plan, his effective effort to stop the free falling economy, has a diminutive price tag of $000.7 Trillion amounting to causing only 16% of the deficit problem.
Simple math shows us that 84% of the deficit problem was created from out of a surplus, by a majority Republican government…
84% Republican’s fault: 16% Democrats fault.. It is no wonder the name of the former president, is missing in action…..
Lifted from the Occupy Planning Committee….
1. Eradicate the Bush tax cuts for the rich and institute new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations.
Strong economies have a system that recirculates income throughout the system. The Bush Tax Cuts interrupt that system, by rewarding the removal of excess (profit) and gambling it on riskier items with the potential of superlative returns. Translated: Putting Billions on Animal Kingdom to win, place or show, doesn’t create jobs.
2. Assess a penalty tax on any corporation that moves American jobs to other countries when that company is already making profits in America.
This is simple. Raise the wealthy’s taxes across the board. Mandate that income earned overseas by American corporations gets taxed by America too. Then, allow a 100% write off on all physical investment here in America. Translated: Corporations will build here, when it becomes cheaper for them to build here.
3. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.
We tried deregulation. It didn’t work. We reverted right back to where we were in the stock crash of 1929 after which Glass-Steagall was enacted to prevent that from ever happening again. Essentially Glass-Steagall says we need to separate our money that we require ourselves to live on, away from speculative investment… If you want to invest, do it by choosing to put your money at risk in an investment firm knowing full well that you could lose it all. However, safe money, needs to stay safe.
4. Join the rest of the free world and create a single-payer, free and universal health care system that covers all Americans all of the time.
There is a reason why other nations spend less on health care per person, and have much better results. THERE IS A REASON. One can wish for a lot of things; wish that private health care didn’t cost so much, wish that private insurance covered everything, wish that our doctor could keep giving us free samples all the time…. Switching to single payer, if we use Japan as a model, would save every American $4,800 dollars a year. A family of four therefore would see a savings of $19,200 per year…. Imagine what a family could do with an additional $19200 a year plopped into their lap? What’s really sad? The Japanese live much longer too… meaning we are paying more and getting nothing in return.
5. Immediately reduce carbon emissions that are destroying the planet and discover ways to live without the oil that will be depleted and gone by the end of this century.
Reducing carbon emissions is good for whatever reason. The idea that carbon fuel usage will deteriorate is not viable. The global energy requirements are growing exponentially. We need to insist that all new demand for power, be met by renewable resources (excluding ethanol). We will still need existing operations to continue just to keep our lights on.
6. We, the people, must pass two constitutional amendments that will go a long way toward fixing the core problems we now have. These include:
a) A constitutional amendment that fixes our broken electoral system by 1) completely removing campaign contributions from the political process; 2) requiring all elections to be publicly financed; 3) moving election day to the weekend to increase voter turnout; 4) making all Americans registered voters at the moment of their birth; 5) banning computerized voting and requiring that all elections take place on paper ballots.
b) A constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and do not have the constitutional rights of citizens. This amendment should also state that the interests of the general public and society must always come before the interests of corporations.
Greece has been racked by torment since soon after Papandreou won power in 2009 and revealed that the real budget deficit was three times bigger than original estimates put out by his CONSERVATIVE predecessor.
Will wonders ever cease?
kavips 
