THE PAPER TIGER

Larry's blog 6-29-2015 THE PAPER TIGER

The term Paper tiger is a literal English translation of the Chinese phrase zhilaohu. The term refers to something that seems threatening but is ineffectual and unable to withstand challenge. The expression became well known in the West as a slogan used by Mao Zedong's Chinese communist state against its opponents, particularly the U.S. government.   One can only imagine what the rest of the world thinks of the United States now.   Once the most powerful, once the most admired, once the most envied, we have become that symbol of ineffectiveness.

Several people, whom I greatly admire, would probably be spinning in their graves if they could see and comprehend the depths to which our beloved country has sunk.  From George Washington, who faced a professional army, the most powerful in the world at the time, with a ragtag put-together army of mostly farmers and tradesmen, and then went on to defeat the enemy…to George S. Patton, a tough-talking, quick-acting tank-commanding soldier who would have gone straight into the heart of his enemy’s country, had he not been stopped.   There was Dwight Eisenhower who commanded the largest invasion force of World War Two.  Then there’s Nimitz, Spruance, Halsey and King of the US Navy, who brought the fleets back from near extinction to rout the Japanese in the Pacific.

All throughout our history we have had men and women who rose to the challenge and did what had to be done…because they dared to be daring.   Today, the arena is much different.   Political correctness has become the de facto law of the land, and not to the betterment of the people.   One cannot speak plainly these days, but must couch their language in euphemisms.   Even complimenting a co-worker on his or her appearance can get you embroiled in a lawsuit!   Chivalry, in the form of opening a door for a woman, or offering a light for her cigarette(for those rare ones that are still smoking) might get you, at the very least, a dressing-down.   What have we come to?

In an earlier piece I asked if this country was making anything anymore, and got several replies to my question.   It seems that if you dig deep enough you can find just about anything you may want, and it will be made in America.  For that, I’m grateful to those folks that took the time to tell me about it.   Naturally, because the product may be of a superior level, it might cost a bit more, and that’s alright too.   We definitely need to get back to making things in this country, and to put people back to work.   A couple of things that might help accomplish that would be to enact THE FAIR TAX, which is a VERY simple tax system.  Everybody pays, nobody is loop-holed, or exempted, and the entire bill as it was originally presented to Congress was only 135 pages long.  One of the other things that would benefit this country is to have qualified teachers teaching our young people.

The halls of academia, from kindergarten to college, seem to be overflowing with folks that are systematically dumbing-down our students…either deliberately, or because they don’t know any different.   School should be where the kids are taught to think, to question, to reason…not just sit there and absorb whatever the instructor is putting out.   Don’t teach for the test, teach so that the student is interested enough to want to know more, to know how, to reason why such-and-such is so, and not just take it for granted.   One of the men that I admired was Robert Kennedy.  He said, “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”   Will we produce people that make it to Mars?   Will we produce people that find a cure for some of the world’s medical ills?  Will we produce statesmen and women that truly understand what their job is?

Sputnick 1, launched into space into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957, caught the United States and the rest of the world by surprise.   Another Kennedy, John Fitzpatrick, and another man I greatly admired, told the world we would not only catch up, but we would put a man on the moon and return him safely to earth…and we did, and we did it before the Russians.   Now, we are hitching rides with the Russians, on their space vehicles, and paying dearly for the seats.   What the hell happened to America in the years in between?   We scrapped our space shuttles which were, to be sure, past their prime, before we had any sort of replacement…hence the begging at Russia’s door to get a ride.

Once again, these are the ravings of an old alarmist, but what if the things I’ve worried about, come true?

Larry Usoff, US Navy Retired   www.AirHumanityRadio.net

AN EVER-GROWING ISIS THREAT

Larry’s Blog for June 22, 2015

AN EVER-GROWING ISIS THREAT

I want to go on record saying that the “strategy”(which is really non-existent) in fighting ISIS is a failure and, so long as we have a panty-waist Congress backing up a Muslim-in-chief, it’s going to stay that way.   Any plan, including the mission creep that is going on now, that calls for US troops on foreign soil, should be stopped immediately.

General Curtis Lemay  is credited with designing and implementing an effective, but also controversial, systematic strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific theater of World War II. During the war, he was known for planning and executing a massive bombing campaign against cities in Japan and a crippling minelaying campaign in Japan's internal waterways. After the war, he initiated the Berlin airlift, then reorganized the Strategic Air Command (SAC) into an effective instrument of nuclear war. He served as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force from 1961 until his retirement in 1965.   He is also known as having said, that he would “bomb them back to the Stone Age” in referring to the North Vietnamese.

            News broadcasts on TV show large concentrations of ISIS personnel in various places, and that would be the time to initially start bombing them.  A continuous bombing attack, 24/7 for about three months, destroying them, their materials and equipment, should either make them give up, or at least have them listen to reason.

Innocent people will be killed…that’s a given in a war.   ISIS does it for some of the most stupid reasons ever, and does it on world-wide television.   We should carpet-bomb ISIS wherever and whenever we find them, and although it sounds cruel and uncaring, the collateral damage, the military’s term for civilian deaths, would most likely allow the rest of the population to live, and live freely.   We would not have to put a single trooper’s boot on foreign soil.

            JFK said, in his inaugural address, “Let the word go forth…let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”   We will not, we cannot shirk that responsibility, but we don’t have to lose trooper’s lives doing it.   Technology already in our arsenal allows us to hit targets half a world away from a ready-room here in this country.   Even mass bombing runs can be done by remotely-controlled aircraft, and we have hundreds of them sitting in the desert, ready to serve us again.   The old, reliable WW2-vintage aircraft are there at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, in Arizona, waiting to be scrapped or used, as the case may be.  It represents, so I’m told, one of the largest air forces in the world.   In addition to the B-29 Super Fortresses, there are B-47’s and B-52’s, all of which are capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons and, probably, remotely-controlled.

            At the end of WW2 the invasion of Japan was going to take place and it was estimated that about three-quarters of a million US and Allied troops would be lost.   The dropping of two atomic bombs put that plan on the back burner and President Truman said that it probably saved the lives of all those who might have been sent to invade Japan, and of course, it would have cost the Japanese casualties as well.   It was a tough decision to make…but in wartime you have to make those kinds of decisions, and you weigh the outcomes carefully.   Presently we have an administration that doesn’t seem to have the ability to choose between red and green jellybeans, much less to make a strong show of force against an ever-growing ISIS threat.

TECHNOLOGY…ISN’T IT GRAND

TECHNOLOGY…ISN’T IT GRAND

Technology…isn’t it grand…isn’t it wonderful…isn’t it great?  Yeah, if you’re talking about computers or other electronically-manipulated equipment.   There doesn’t seem to be any dispute about how the personal computer has changed much of the world.  Old folks, like me, can get on the internet and look up anything they want in a matter of seconds…a couple of minutes at the most.   We go to the movies and see things on the screen that are incomprehensible…but we could believe them because there they are!

Clyde in California can send an email to Louie in London in a matter of minutes, and the message will never see the inside of a postal service facility.

            But…when was the last time you actually saw service tradesmen(or women) doing their job?  Oh sure, there are projects going on all the time, and I watch them going up, or out as the case may be.  When was the last time you took a pair of shoes in to get them half, or full, soled?   Is there still a bakery in your neighborhood, where the bakers are all from a family?    From what I’ve been able to gather, membership in trade unions is going down, steadily each year, and not because the money isn’t good because it is.   I used to belong to a union, for ten years.   When you leave, you take your “book” with you, and that book shows where you worked, for how long and what you got paid.

For four out of the ten years I was either unemployed or on strike…no, not all at once, but over the course of the years.  Out of work more than working struck me as being not a good thing and when I left my goal was to start my own business, which I did.

            Recently a reason came up for me to build shelves in my “office”.   I called several phone numbers in the book and discovered that most of them no longer were in business.   The ones that were still operating couldn’t even get to me for over a week to just give me an estimate…they were that busy.   Finally one came by, and handed me an estimate that just about floored me, even given the rise in the price of materials.   So, the decision was made for me to do it myself.   It turned out pretty nice, for about half the quoted price.

            Why am I telling you this?   Because, as a nation, we are losing the ability to build things…to make things, and to make things better.   If we are not makers, we are takers, and should something go wrong, really wrong, in the world…we are going to be screwed.   How long do you think we could last with most of our clothing and household goods coming from China and the Pacific countries?   How long do you think our oil reserves would keep us going until new refineries could be built and tested, if the muddled Middle East goes down the tubes entirely?   Even some of the medications that I take come from foreign countries…friendly now, but who knows where they would be when push comes to shove?   It’s been noted here, several times, that former friends are now potential enemies and former enemies are now our strong allies…a mixed up world indeed.

            If the Twentieth Century belonged to the United States, will we surrender our leadership to another country during this century?   Even now, China is building islands, yes, they’re building islands in the South China Sea in order to expand their claim to territorial waters.   ABC News reported that “The United States has called for an immediate end to China's intensifying reclamation works in the South China Sea and vowed to continue sending military aircraft and ships to the tense region.”   The US Navy regularly patrols the open, international, waters…but if the Chinese government declares that their claim extends further and further we could wind up flying over sovereign waters.

            It wouldn’t be the first time that unarmed patrol planes, and even passenger airliners, have been shot down…and, even the United States has done it.   Iran Air Flight 655 was an Iran Air civilian passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai. On 3 July 1988, the aircraft operating this route was shot down by the United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes. The incident took place in Iranian airspace, over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, and on the flight's usual flight path. The aircraft, an Airbus A300 B2-203, was destroyed by SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles fired from Vincennes.

Mistakes are made, but when you deliberately, and perhaps unlawfully, claim more international waters than you’re allowed, something’s got to give.

            Did it surprise anyone that our school kids are losing ground to children of Asian, or Indian, backgrounds?   The recent National Spelling Bee was a tie, and both winners were of Indian background…and when I say Indian I don’t mean from this country.  We have to call them Native Americans…which brings me to political correctness and that’s a whole other story, for another time.   Wake up America…we’re losing ground.

     Larry Usoff, US Navy Retired    www.AirHumanityRadio.net

           

THE MOST ANTI-AMERICAN PRESIDENT EVER

On Memorial Day as I watched the Muslim-in-chief speak at Arlington National Cemetery my anger rose until I thought I might have a stroke.   The nerve, the unmitigated gall of this person, to speak on that day, in that place, made me wish fervently that there was some way to get him out of office and out of my country.   He is the most anti-American president ever, and for him to say anything about our troops, whom he despises, is enough to make me want to vomit…I despise him that much.

Many Americans, and I don’t believe that the Imposter-in-chief is one, were in attendance at that, and other memorial services around the country.   It would be difficult to find another speaker, anywhere in these United States, that spoke such empty words.   Were it possible for me to have attended that service in Arlington my presence would be all over the evening news because I would have shouted as loudly as I could that “you are a liar” to the anti-American president.

Even as we take notice of the thousands of true, loyal, Americans who served and are serving, this administration is decimating the Armed Forces to the point where it would be difficult to sustain, much less win, a large-scale war.  Our wins in Iraq and Afghanistan are being shamed by the savages of ISIS running rough-shod through those lands.   We trained them, we equipped them, we depended upon them and they have rewarded us by murdering us in green-on-blue attacks, turning tail and running in the face of an inferior force.

Once we were “Fortress America” and we armed our friends and they fought alongside our troops.  Then we had tried and true friends.   We cannot depend on some of those friends now, and through a series of political twists and turns, we find that we are aiding present enemies and the few true friends that we still have, have no idea of how to take America because we present different faces to different groups.   When will the patriots in the United States band together, oust this administration and install a group that will put the country first.   This is no longer a Democrat or Republican problem, because in the mind of the enemy if you are American you are to be killed.

If science fiction could come true, we could create Terminator-like robots that would take to the battlefield with no thoughts about gathering votes or being liked.  Their job, their only job, would be to defeat the enemy and in such a manner that they would never again rise up and threaten the peace of the world.   The United States has the technology, I believe, to mass-produce these types of soldiers.   They would be directed by live members of the armed forces, from miles away.

We have bomb-disabling robots that even city police forces have.  We have drones that can fly overhead and even direct other drones to enemy targets.  There is a long-range rifle that I read about that will fire a bullet that goes around corners.   Ships at sea can shoot missiles hundreds of miles and demolish the target.   All of this is now, so why are we repeating the mistake of trying to fight the last war again.   Once we held the secret of nuclear bombs and we were the only superpower in the world.   Why are we so determined to allow our great nation to be cut off at the knees because of some delusional thinking?    Wake up America!  

Politics, at least in the United States, seems to be more interested in getting re-elected, and that is a rotten way to run a country.   There should be no career politicians.   The founding fathers never meant there to be.   Men were to be elected to office, serve their term and then return to their homes and jobs.   Career politicians tend to come to believe that they have a vested interest in the seat that they hold.   From the president on down, term limits…knowing that you will be leaving on such-and-such a date, should give you the impetus to do the best job you can while you’re in office.   Once you know that you’re going to remain in office ad infinitum it then becomes a game to show up, do as little as you need to do, pacify those who need it, and keep getting those perks.

Am I upset?  You’re damn right I am.   My country is run by an anti-American, probably foreign-born Muslim-in-hiding and there are few voices being raised against him.   There are legal options to removing presidents, senators, representatives, and even justices of the Supreme Court.   The founding fathers were visionaries, knowing that checks and balances should keep everything going as it should.   Now, along comes a man who flouts every document on which this country operates, and is aided and abetted by a Congress that allows lawlessness to overcome sacred documents.

Wake up America…your country needs you, desperately.

Larry Usoff, US Navy Retired   www.AirHumanityRadio.net