KenG

A Tragedy, and Some Questions

KenG

Last year in the wake of the chaos of post-Katrina New Orleans I wrote an article focusing on the "culture of dependence" that has gripped a significant portion of our population.  More on that in an upcoming post. I was reminded of the dangers inherent in systemic dependency when I read about last week’s tragedy … Read more

And That’s The Way It Was..(Part 4)

KenG
Previous excerpts here (1, 2, 3) 
 
The French Return to Lebanon

The French government was heavily involved in the recent UN negotiations that led to the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. But French President Chirac was widely derided when he then announced that France would contribute only 200 troops to the international peacekeeping force. Within two weeks, France increased its commitment to 2000 personnel, part of a planned 15,000-man UN force in Lebanon.

France has a long history in this region. When the Treaty of Versailles divided the defeated Ottoman Empire in 1919, the League of Nations decided that four of its territories in the Middle East should be League of Nations mandates temporarily governed by the United Kingdom and France. The British were given Palestine and Iraq, while France was given mandate over the region of Lebanon and Syria.

In September 1920 France declared the creation of the State of Greater Lebanon, declaring Beirut as its capital. The new territory was granted a flag, merging the French Tricouleur with the Lebanese cedar. When the French government capitulated to the Germans in 1941, their mandate territories in the Middle East sided with the Nazis.

United Press correspondent Henry Tilton Gorrell was on the front lines during the fighting between the Allies and the Axis-supporting French Vichy government. In this fourth installment from his soon-to-be-published memoir “Eyewitness” (written in 1943 and currently being edited by GraniteGrok contributor Ken Gorrell), Henry reports on the fierce battles waged by the Allies to keep the region free from Nazi control.

Excerpts from Chapter 13, Vichy Treachery

The Allies had to take a lot of Vichy’s insolence prior to their decision to kick over the bucket and occupy North Africa, but the boys who swallowed the most were the Australians during the Syrian Campaign of June-July 1941.

Imagine a tough bunch of troops being told to go to war “with an olive branch in one hand and a grenade in the other.” And how’d you like to have been in their shoes when, proffering the olive branch under a white flag, they were mowed down by murderous machine-gun and mortar fire.

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From Mayberry, RFD to Maywood, CA

KenG

In addition to this post, this disturbing story was discussed at LimitstoGrowth.org in March 2006, but received little national attention.  The original news story in the LA Times is no longer available on that newspaper’s website archive.  Read here about this experiment in lawlessness, miles from America’s second-largest city. Welcome to Maywood CA, Where Roads … Read more

Lawyers!

KenG
Soon, "personal responsibility" will be considered a quaint phrase, like "Sunday best" or "two-parent family."  How goes the old joke?  "What do you call 500 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?"  Answer:  "A good start."
From Fox News:
Professor: BlackBerry Addiction Lawsuits Likely in Future
Friday , August 25, 2006
TORONTO — Keeping employees on electronic leashes such as laptops, BlackBerries and other devices that keep them constantly connected to the office could soon lead to lawsuits by those who grow addicted to the technology, a U.S. academic warns. In a follow-up to an earlier paper on employees’ tech addictions, Gayle Porter, associate professor of management at the Rutgers University School of Business in Camden, N.J., has written a paper that states workers whose personal lives suffer as a result of tech addictions could turn their sights on their employers. "These people that can’t keep it within any reasonable parameters and have these problems in their lives at some point may say: ‘My life is not all that great. How did this happen? Who can I blame for this?’," Porter, who co-authored the study with two other academics, said in an interview on Thursday. "And they’re going to say, ‘The company’."

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The Kids are Alright…It’s the Teachers Who Have Problems

KenG

From the August 21st Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY): A Stuart Middle School teacher has been removed from the classroom after he burned two American flags in class Friday as part of a civics lesson, according to Jefferson County Public Schools officials. . Dan Holden, who teaches seventh-grade social studies, burned small flags in two different classes … Read more

A Bounty of Mutinies to Come?

KenG

The headline in the Daily Mail (UK) screamed:  "Mutiny as passengers refuse to fly until Asians are removed."  Leaving aside the minor matter that the British press uses "Asian" to describe anyone with an ethnic background from the region stretching from Turkey to Siberia to Japan to Indonesia – which, while geographically accurate is disingenuously … Read more

The French – way to reinforce that stereotype!

KenG

This story from Fox News:  Countries Pledge 3,500 Troops to U.N. for Lebanon Peacekeeping Force Friday, August 18, 2006 UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations got pledges Thursday of 3,500 troops for an expanded U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon, but it was unclear whether the soldiers represented the right mix of countries and units and could deploy … Read more

And That’s The Way It Was..(Part 3)

KenG

Terror in London, Conflict Imminent, Public Unprepared  ("Eyewitness" Part III)

History provides interesting parallels.  In September, 1939, United Press war correspondent Henry Tilton Gorrell arrived in London on assignment.  He found the British government unprepared for war.  The Germans were well on their way to overrunning Poland, and Britain had pledged to protect the Poles, but Prime Minister Chamberlain was still sitting on the fence, holding out hopes that appeasing a fascist dictator might prevent a larger conflict.  And then the terrorists struck. 

As war seemed imminent, Henry Gorrell wrote in his memoir “Eyewitness” that:

There were pathetic efforts to fortify London against aerial attack, carried out by a public wholly unprepared for war.  Children were being evacuated by the thousands, and hospitals were being cleared for action.  Doctors were being mobilized even as debate in Parliament continued.

The minds of the British public were made up, though, and as the man-in-the-street snapped up extras, one could see anger in his face.  Headlines revealed that no decision had yet been reached.  The Londoner was tired of the German war of nerves and was finally convinced of the inevitability of world conflict.  He realized that Hitler could be dealt with only in his own language – with force.

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Economics 101 – Big Oil Style

KenG

The laws of economics are not as certain as the laws of physics, but if we ignore them and substitute liberal political rhetoric instead,  we remain ignorant of the cause-effect relationships that effect our lives.  Supply-demand, the costs of regulation, labor, and capital infrastructure, market uncertainty…all of these go into the price we pay at the pump.  Too bad so few Americans understand this.  Link is here.

Big Oil reinvests big profits to tap costlier reserves

By Patrice Hill
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
August 8, 2006

Big Oil’s record profits attract attention and outrage, but an independent study has found that oil companies do exactly what economic textbooks say they should do with all that money: They invest it in oil exploration and development efforts that eventually should relieve pressure on prices.

The top 20 U.S. and Canadian oil companies actually invested 50 percent more than they earned in the past 10 years in efforts to produce more oil, but adverse geopolitical developments conspired to give them fewer opportunities to expand production while fading oil fields in the U.S. and elsewhere forced them to spend substantially more just to maintain current production, according to the study by the Ernst & Young accounting firm.

"Reinvestment is under way, and it’s strong," said Charles Swanson, an energy analyst at the firm, but "average costs to find and develop oil and gas reserves have tripled since 1997, while total reserve-replacement costs have more than doubled."

The study found that the top companies — including Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron, among others — took in a mind-numbing $5 trillion in revenue from sales of oil and related products between 1995 and 2005. After subtracting the cost of equipment, leases, labor and other operating expenses, the companies posted whopping profits of $336 billion.

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“Muhammad Atta is Laughing in Hell

KenG

Here we go again…not able to track those we should!  FBI Warns Law Enforcement to Look Out for 11 Missing Egyptian Exchange Students Monday , August 07, 2006 The FBI alerted state and local authorities Monday to be on the lookout for 11 Egyptian exchange students who arrived in the U.S. last month but never … Read more

Money Pit?

KenG

The ending paragraph of a WSJ editorial ("Tunnel to Nowhere," 3 Aug) on the Big Dig: When the Big Dig tunnels were finally completed, Gov. Romney suggested naming one of the arteries the "Liberty Tunnel" to pay tribute to the soldiers fighting for freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Legislature protested and demanded that the … Read more

Batty

KenG

Israel as “vampire bat”? Terrorist-supporting Arab states run by dictators as “butterflies”? While everyone is entitled to an opinion, this letter to the Monitor shows that some opinions are of value only as examples of poor reasoning.

Despite ample historical evidence, many on the anti-war Left continue to put their faith in international coalitions and the UN to resolve the ongoing crisis in the Middle East. These same folks claim to prefer "diplomatic" solutions even when there is no diplomatic solution. (Where is the diplomatic middle ground with an enemy that fails to uphold international standards of behavior and repeated calls for the annihilation of UN-member states?) They also favor applying a “European approach” rather than American "cowboyism" to dealing with the world’s hot spots.

Post World War II Europeans have spent decades supporting meaningless resolutions and absolving terrorist organizations of blame for heinous crimes while holding the United States and Israel to impossible standards. That is the “European approach,” and it fails miserably everywhere it is tried. (Remember the former Yugoslavia?) The irony is that the United States “cowboy” has spent billions of dollars and sacrificed thousands of lives over the past 70 years trying to mitigate European diplomatic, military, and philosophical messes.

Let us not forget that Israel was created in part because European powers could not be trusted……

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The definition of analogy is….

KenG

Update 1

Ken responds to a Letter writer in the Concord Monitor here.  Spotting another Letter supporting him here, he continues

Thank you, Ms. Fallon.  You clearly understand the situation far better than Kenneth Joop of Concord.  He writes a letter in the Sunday Monitor that reads, in part:

It is difficult for me to conceive of anyone supporting Israel’s devastation of Lebanon. We are often cited various Muslim groups who wish to wipe Israel off the map. Israel is in no danger of being wiped off the map, although this is not necessarily true of Palestine.

Israel is fighting against a deadly terrorist organization whose leader states flatly that his goal is the destruction of the state of Israel, a UN member state.  Arab nations have tried to conquer Israel in conventional war since its establishment.  Now they use terrorist proxies.  Using conventional arms, these groups can not destroy Israel.  But a nuclear-armed Iran will pose a mortal threat.  Does Mr. Joop really believe that the Jewish state could survive a nuclear detonation in Tel Aviv?  Death, destruction, refugees, economic chaos – the land would not be "wiped off the map," but the nation would be. 

And what, exactly, is the "Palestine" to which Mr. Joop refers?  A segment of the old Ottoman Empire? The post World War I British administrative region called the Mandate of Palestine, which included the modern Kingdom of Jordan?  The Palestinian Authority has not earned statehood.

Israel has a right to defend itself, even if that means attacking a terrorist enemy that is interwoven with a civilian population.  The Allies destroyed Germany and Japan to win World War II, killing many civilians, many children.  Such is the nature of war.  If southern Lebanon must be destroyed in order to eradicate Hezbollah, so be it.

 

============================================ 

(Sometimes, people just don’t do their homework – both in the historical sense and in the literary sense.  Ken gets a "twofer" with this one  -Skip)

 

Double standard, JULIE LANOCHA , Hopkinton – Letter  to The Concord Monitor  July 23. 2006 10:00AM
 

Despite the sympathies anyone might have for the Jews following the atrocities of World War II, the fact is they had no more right to be in Palestine than the British to be in Northern Ireland.

To put the current hostilities into perspective, if England had responded to the kidnapping of two soldiers by the IRA with the bombing of Irish villages, destroying hospitals, bridges, airports, killing hundreds of civilians, cutting off water and electricity, how would the international community respond?

If I recall correctly, there was a very active IRA sympathizer community in the United States raising money and providing support to this terrorist group. I don’t remember an enraged U.S. populace calling for the terrorists to be stopped, for the bloodshed to end, for all means necessary to be put to use to stop the menace.

Why the difference?

JULIE LANOCHA

 

Here’s my response:  No Analogy

An effective argument from analogy  must meet two requirements:

 

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The PR War: Time to go on the offensive

KenG

There’s nothing to be done…except what’s being done.  The news this morning tells of more Lebanese civilian deaths – women and children – as the result of Israeli bombing.  But because of the way Hezbollah fights and hides, too many civilians will die on both sides of the conflict.  That is not Israel’s fault.  The … Read more

Basic knowledge is a “precious resource” at NPR

KenG

These are the folks many rely on for news and views.  I weep for the future generations…. 60 years later, NPR’s Schorr is still a ‘precious resource’ Contact Peter Johnson at pjohnson@usatoday.com Daniel Schorr is used to producers popping into his Washington, D.C., office at National Public Radio to ask, on deadline: Which war came … Read more

And That’s The Way It Was..(Part 2)

KenG

On July 19th the New York Times ran an article headlined:  "With Israeli Use of Force, Debate Over Proportion."  I can’t say with certainty that the Times has never run an article headlined "With Islamic Terrorist Use of Force, Debate Over Proportion,"  but it seems improbable given that paper’s track record. 

"Proportion" has become the new buzzword in journalistic circles.  Apparently, journalists think that in war, as in sports, the more closely matched the players, the more fair the game.  But of course war is not a game.  In war, combatants and civilians die.  This has always been the case and is likely to remain the case throughout our lifetimes.  In 1936 during the Spanish Civil War, United Press correspondent Henry Tilton Gorrell witnessed the killing of civilians as war tactic.  He reported the gory details, writing at the time:

General Franco’s forces shelled Madrid regularly at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

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Economics training in our schools

KenG

From The American Spectator:       We Don’t Teach Economics in Our Schools – Friday, June 16, 2006 @ 5:20:51 PM     The School Board in Stoneham, Massachusetts decided to pay for health insurance of school cafeteria workers by raising the price of school lunches from $2.00 to $2.75. The result: In an apparent … Read more

We ARE succeeding in Iraq – by one who knows

KenG

The following is an address given by the US Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzada.

Summary (and Conclusion)

In my remarks, I have explained the path to success in Iraq – the actions that the Iraqi government, the United States, and other members of the Coalition see as the keys to achieving the strategic goal of a stable and representative Iraq.  The Iraqis are going through a difficult transition, simultaneously facing the challenges of state and nation building while also fighting vicious terrorists.  Iraq’s leaders have committed themselves to a course of action that can succeed.  None of the steps in this strategy are easy, but all of them are doable.

I want to end by saying a word on the importance of succeeding in Iraq.  I am aware of the dangers of staying too long in Iraq, as well as the risks of leaving too soon, before success is ensured.  A precipitous Coalition departure could unleash a sectarian civil war, which inevitably would draw neighboring states into a regional conflagration that would disrupt oil supplies and cause instability to spill over borders.  It could also result in al Qaeda taking over part of Iraq, recreating the sanctuary it enjoyed but lost in Afghanistan.  If al Qaeda gained this foothold – which is the strategy of the terrorists – it would be able to exploit Iraq’s strategic location and enormous resources.  This would make the past challenge of al Qaeda in Afghanistan look like child’s play.  Finally, a precipitous withdrawal could lead to an ethnic civil war, with the Kurds concluding that the Iraqi democratic experiment had failed and taking matters into their own hands and with regional powers becoming involved to secure their interests.

Whatever anyone may have thought about the decision to topple Saddam – whether one supported it or not – succeeding in Iraq is now essential to the future of the region and the world.  Most of the world’s security problems emanate from the region stretching from Morocco to Pakistan.  Shaping its future is the defining challenge of our time.  What happens in Iraq will be decisive in determining how this region evolves.  Therefore, the struggle for the future of Iraq is vital to the future of the world.

 

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The Math Wars

KenG

There is a war raging all around us.  It is a global war.  It is a war that the United States cannot afford to lose.  No one has died in this war, and no one is likely to.  But there are casualties.  Their injuries are not physical; they are mental.  And the suffering is life-long.  I’m not referring to the Global War on Terror or the War on Drugs.  I’m talking about the Math War.

While the United States is, militarily, the world’s only superpower, we are, mathematically, merely a second-rate power, and losing ground every year.  In the Math War, the superpowers are Singapore, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Belgium.  In assessment after assessment, those countries prove that their weapons – in this case, mathematically-competent 4th, 8th, and 12th graders – are more accurate and advanced than our own.  Their strategies are more focused.  Their national resolve is stronger.

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