Craig Crawford's Trail Mix

woohoo

[from last thread]

Solar

"We deploy over 190,000 troops in 46 countries and territories. In just one such country, Japan, at the end of March 2008, we still had 99,295 people connected to U.S. "

Think of all those people spending all that tax money in this Country!! On top of the fact that this Nation would be a hellava lot safer if most of those troops were back here.

I realize there are a lot of missions out there where our troops need to be deployed. And many that can't be turned on a dime. But there is plenty of savings to be had there if the govt made a concentrated effort.

I think that is one of the things missing from Obama's administration. Not just an acknowledgement of the debt. But some concrete plans on how we will reduce the deficit.

I understood the need for stimulus spending and recognize the crisis we have with healthcare. But months after global financial turmoil caused by spending beyond one's means - Obama needs to give people some confidence that our soceity is not being built on a "pile of sand."

ooo-ooo

Dang, i missed it again.

KGC,

from last thread,

Funny.!

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/09/another-kind-of-recess.html#comment-256991

Best line I have heard about Palin:

"She is a walking culture war."

(I think I heard it here)

Warren, yes: Also, what did you think about all of the bases that equal 865, there has to be a huge amount of savings that could be had if obama would just take a look at the ones that we need, and close down the ones that we don't, thinking about the manpower, and the machinery, planes etc, that takes a lot of cash to keep these bases operating ....just saying.

Chlo,

A beautiful picture for sure. I saved it to my pictures, from there the pixels come out right when I will use it for my screen.....gracias

warren. "I realize there are a lot of missions out there where our troops need to be deployed."

Where would that be? The worse, North Korea, actually builds relationships with South Korea when we stay out of the way.

Turkey may have been important, but it also triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis. Europe can defend itself, as Japan should. Maybe a few of the island bases as forward operation bases like Guam. But other than that, I can't think of anywhere overseas we need to be.

i will say that that i'm for the Afghan mission, since we had a big part in screwing up that country and I've never met anyone that's been there that hasn't loved it and believed in defeating the taliban, a particularly ghoulish group.

74, 73, 72

buchanan has been certifiable for 20 years. The only thing that surprises me is that he blames the Poles for WWII rather than the Jews.

I look forward to buchanan's next books :

TOJO : Japan's Misunderstood Pacifist

DAHMER, The touching story of a boy and his boys

PILATE : Jesus' 13th Disciple

71, 70 , 69..getting there, but have a long way to go.

Solar

I would mind keeping the bases.

Well there you go don - that's 1.

Sturg -
My mother joined the DAR on an ancestor who fought at the Cowpens.

Don1 -
The trouble with Afghanistan ....... The modern parts are stuck in the 12th century, the backward parts are stuck in the 4th century.

By the time the Huns invaded Poland, Japan had been raping China for 2 years, and Italy had been raping Ethiopia for nearly 4 years.

If Germany had wanted Danzig, why did it have to take Warsaw and Crakow, etc ?
If Germany had merely wanted Danzig, why did hitler make friends with and start trading land and weapons with buchanan's hero, joe stalin ?

The man has shit for brains. Composted shit, at that.

Don 1,

I see that your plane has landed; it must have been a cpl of light years away.! Welcome back sky walker.......

Besides, what would give hitler the right to trade a chunk of Catholic Slovakia for Protestant Danzig ?

What has buchanan got against Catholic Slovakia ?

What has buchanan got against Catholic Poland ?

I apologize for saying buchanan has shit for brains. I shouldn't write such ugly remarks about shit.

Why would anyone care what Levi thinks ?

Warren,

When are enough bases-enough? we have more people involved, other than military personal imo, it is way to expensive....the $ would be there for all our domestic needs; and then freeze the money given to all countries for one year; while we get healthy. I just don't like us being the bestes buddies of China.....

C-bob:

"The trouble with Afghanistan ....... The modern parts are stuck in the 12th century, the backward parts are stuck in the 4th century."

And in many ways - that is a problem for a lot of people. Innocent and otherwise.

The should be our mission in Afghanistan: Creating a modern infrastructure, education and political system in place.

It should be done in coordination with the locals. And decisions of religion and culture should be left in the sole control of the Afghans.

(And who are we to talk - what century are the Republicans stuck in?!)

Solar

We became the hegemont. Perhaps at first by choice - but eventually by definition.

I have no problem with the rise of China to be the Yin to our Yang (or is it the other way around ; )

I'll give you Guam, Indian Ocean, Turkey, Greenland and Azores. Azores cause it's got great wine. That's about it. The rest are just charity. Or imperialism.

Thanks solar. Landed in Phoenix. Dang it's hot out here. I wait till it drops to 100 degrees to go out for my walk. I can't imagine being in full battle gear in Iraq at 134.

CBob,
that's why. They have such a high illiteracy rate that our troops can't drop propaganda fliers, they have to drop radios. The Taliban will close all schools for girls, and much of the education for men.

I say we stay, open and protect schools and clinics. At least there we're really wanted.

Warren,

I don't think that we should be a yin, or yang to anyone. We should be independent....this is where our true strength is in......China has its print all over the Pak area, and in Iran. It's all a big chess match, and we are not doing so well. China is flexing it's green power as we speak, they have the most natural resources for going green, and they are playing hard for the oil in that area.....

NARRATOR: In the roll call of those who had brought about victory, the codebreakers of Bletchley Park would never be mentioned. The operations there were to stay a secret for the next 30 years. Eight of the ten Colossus machines were destroyed. The remaining two were moved to British secret service headquarters, where they may have played a significant part in the codebreaking operations of the Cold War. In fact, the Russian military had developed a code that was similar to the high command's Fish code. So the techniques invented at Bletchley Park were still to prove vital in a very different kind of conflict. In 1960, the order finally came to destroy the last two Colossus machines.

THOMAS H. FLOWERS: That was a terrible mistake. I was instructed to destroy all the records which I did. I took all the drawings and plans and all the information about Colossus on paper and put it in the boiler fire, saw it burn.

NARRATOR: Tommy Flowers returned to the post office and was forgotten. In all the secrecy, Colossus never received recognition as the world's first programmable computer. Instead, that honor was to go to the American Eniac. As for the codebreakers, they all dispersed, some back to universities and others into the fledgling computer industry. A few stayed on in the British secret service, while some of the Americans returned to Arlington Hall. The most innovative thinker of all, the man whose inventiveness had been at the center of Bletchley Park's success, died tragically. In 1954, Alan Turing took his own life after being persecuted as a security risk because he was gay.

DONALD MICHIE: Alan Turing is one of the figures of the century. The world of computing and now the world of the Internet stems from Alan Turing's fundamental ideas. There were other great men in Bletchley Park, but in the long, long hall of history, I think Turing's name will probably be the number one in terms of consequence for mankind.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2615decoding.html

--------------------
Don't ask don't tell.

"I'll give you Guam, Indian Ocean, Turkey, Greenland and Azores. Azores cause it's got great wine. That's about it. The rest are just charity. Or imperialism."

Definitely imperialism...imo....People like Karzai, are just our governors....we haven't said a word about the ballot stuffing of Karzai......

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/09/the-book-of-levi-on-sarah.html#comment-257025

Solar

Your post starts with independence - but ends with competition.

There will always be a competition for resources. That is the natural way.

Although I think that the intensity level of that competition can be kept at bay if we don't engage in the needless destruction of resources. And cooperation is often vital to this.

And we don't decide whether we want Yin/Yang - it just is.

Molly Ivins said that Buchanan's speech at the '92 GOP convention "sounded better in the original German."

Latest report from the Fishbowl election:

"Class Clown -- CQ's Craig Crawford came out of nowhere to take the lead over WaPo's Dana Milbank and TPM's Matt Cooper but there are no winners yet. A little campaigning or a good practical joke could tip the scales in any clown's favor."

Only 24 hours of voting left.. http://bit.ly/2sNIY0

Voting still open in several other categories.. http://bit.ly/1MyIxj

I did my duty and voted, voted, voted, Im from chicago, going now for my freinds at the cemetery, they vote too......later, U R at 35% and rising....

Craig -
This is all good fun, until Millbank hauls you into court.

Solar

"I just don't like us being the best buddies of China....."

Did you prefer the Cold War when we were hostile to the USSR? I think best buds would be a heck of a lot better for international affairs.

"Craig - This is all good fun, until Millbank hauls you into court. -- Posted by: Colorado Bob"

No problem CBob, I've already retained James Baker for the recount fight.

Let's take a look at the Book of Yazdi, Ahmadinejad's spiritual advisor. In light of Holder's investigation of the Bad CIA, this might offer some comic relief were it not so supremely disturbing:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/133214

I hope you wanted me to vote for you Craig.......

Now back to sleep as my arms are killing me.

Nite

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/09/the-book-of-levi-on-sarah.html#comment-257031

Oops. . .

Kinda wondering how to vote. Dana is on the bottom of my list for everything. But is that good or bad here?

One of the first biographies I ever read was on Mao. China doesn't have a history of imperialism, and I see no evidence of that happening now. But they're some of the best businesspeople on earth, they'll be ready.

I think India and South Korea will be the real wild cards in the new empire.

"Kinda wondering how to vote. But is that good or bad here? -- don1one"

Don, some might say it's a dubious honor but I won't rest until we achieve a simple majority to rule the Clown Parliament and distribute the spoils of victory to all of my Trail Mix, Facebook and Twitter friends.. http://bit.ly/2sNIY0

Otherwise, we'll have to form a coalition government with MSMers Dana Milbank or Matt Cooper, which could get ugly.

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/09/the-book-of-levi-on-sarah.html#comment-257040

Oops. . .

Fairweather, what is the "oops" thing, explain?

36%

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/09/the-book-of-levi-on-sarah.html#comment-257042

well. . .uh--my cursor slipped when I was votin', see, and--uh--

I'm not sayin' another word on the advice of counsel. . .

Ha, Fairweather, you have sticky fingers from those hanging chads?

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/09/the-book-of-levi-on-sarah.html#comment-257045

Huh-uh.:D

Where's Dexter?

Some people are seriously pissed off. This is from the comments in HuffPo:

"...have you noticed the curious affliction that has spread amongst Obama's true-blue supporters like wildfire? They sound exactly like the Bush faithful a few years ago, who responded to any and all criticisms of the war in Iraq with the same tired, dogmatic, unconvincing spiel: "Well, we can't just pack up and leave! We have to complete the mission!"

The Obama Kool-Aid drinkers are at least as creepy as the Bush ones, and I would say even more so--because, during the campaign, they pretended to care about changes in policy. They pretended to care about how the rest of the world viewed the United States. Turns out that the only thing they cared about was Obama becoming president. Now that their god-figure is in the White House, the cult of personality is satisfied. Little things like war and health care reform couldn't be less important to them."

"Inhofe gave his constituents plenty to worry about.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=298&articleid=20090902_298_0_GROVEP35689

“Every institution that has made this country the greatest nation in the world is under attack,” he said at the end of the 75-minute session.

During those 75 minutes, Inhofe said President Barack Obama is disarming the military, is destroying everything good about America and is determined to turn foreign terrorists loose on U.S. soil."

Once again the Republican Fascist Racist Bigoted Nazi's are trying to incite their base to Assassinate President Obama and still Obama just don't get it.

You can not negotiate with Terrorists and trying to will get you killed.

We the people gave you the White House and a majority in Congress and the Senate. Use what we gave or resign.

The same goes for all Democrats in the House or Senate. Give what you promised or don't expect us to show up to vote in 2010 or 2012. In fact if you won't give us what you promised you all may as well resign or go back too your offices and put a bullet in you head.

The report on ayatollah mesbah is nasty. It isn't actually the book of Yazdi, but rather the Book of " Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center " (ITIC). I don't put too much faith in ITIC either as a translator or a reporter of fact. While the report is probably correct in most points, I wouldn't stake my life on it.

Like Solar, I don't like being the buddy of commie China, but that doesn't mean I favor another cold war. What is the purpose of reducing the menu to just 2 choices - supporting the murderous tyranny, or living on the edge of WWIII ? Surely, there are other alternatives.

don1one,

China has a 3,000 year long history of imperialism. In the Han dynasty, China conquered the Uighurs. The T'ang Dynasty conquered and enslaved the people of Guangdung and Fujien, and imposed their rule on the Mongols and Koreans. Under later dynasties, China conquered Tibet, North Viet Nam, parts of Siberia, and Manchuria.

Presently, the Chinese commies are working hard to exterminate the Tibetans and Uighurs.

I don't know what you mean, when you refer to Korea and India, but the chances of India being overtaken by China in the next century are approximately zero. In fact, the odds are much better that the commies will fall to a military coup de etat. But, don't hold your breath.

Korea could come under Chinese control, but only if the north Koreans nuke South Korea.