Suppose...

Generals Stanley McChrystal and David Patreus and a few other top officers were talking about the twin wars in Iraq and Afghanistan... and the problems with the Palestinians and the Pakistanis and Iran and all the other Arab crazies, and said - strictly off the record - "This civilian team is going to cause us to lose it all. We have to do something."

The group agrees they can't do anything about Obama or Biden, that will take an election. But neither Holbrooke or Eikenberry were elected, they can start with them!

But, someone said, "We cannot make a frontal assault on the team. Any officer that tries that is sure to be demoted."

Then McChrystal says, "To hell with it! I'll take the demotion. These guys have to go." And someone counters, "But... if you just flat out tell them they are idiots, you'll get the demotion but they will stay. How can we swing it so that you take the demotion and they get the boot as well?"

McChrystal says, "Suppose I say they are idiots in a way that is not a frontal assault, but more like a slip-of-the-tongue. Maybe I will get the demotion but public pressure will force their exit!"

Someone adds, "Maybe. But if you take the demotion, who will take your place? Who will be acceptable as your replacement?"

Patreus jumps in, "I've got it! Hell, I'll take the demotion, too. But I won't attack the team up front. When you make the slip-of-the-tongue that gets you canned, Obama will be hard pressed to find a replacement whom anyone will accept... except me. But, that will be a demotion for me... and I haven't done a thing to deserve it. Which means I will have a big bargaining chip! So I will say, "Okay... I'll take that job... but I want something for it. For starters, I want Holbrooke and Eikenberry gone."

As usual, David Patreus has the right answer. Now to arrange that slip-of-the-tongue. It has to be sort of 'second hand', like through a reporter.

Now, of all the news organizations wanting in-depth access, who is most likely to blow a slip all out of proportions?


Just supposing, of course!

MacArthur & McChrystal

Today there are a lot of people making comparisons between Generals Douglas MacArthur and Stanley McChrystal. Both were relieved of their command by an incompetent president. Let's pray that is the end of the similarities.

My Army career was undistinguished but I did spend nine months with AFWESPAC - Army forces Western Pacific. Douglas MacArthur was my C.G.

MacArthur doesn't need me to defend him. He was one of the most competent military commanders of modern times. When the Korean War erupted, the invading North Korean forces pushed the ill-prepared American forces southward to the tip of the peninsula. When MacArthur came to the rescue, he did not join the beleaguered forces on their toe-hold of Korean soil. He landed his forces on the western shore, in the middle of the peninsula and swept across, trapping the North Korean forces which had pushed southward. Then he turned north and quickly swept to the Chinese border.

The Chinese Air Force began attacking the Americans from the safety of their bases on Chinese soil. MacArthur - a General who won wars - wanted to take them out. Had he done so, Korea would have been unified and we would not be facing them as a rogue nation today. But, timid Truman feared that action would restart World War II, and fired MacArthur.

The result was that North Korean and Chinese forces were able to push the Americans back to the 38th parallel, where the two armies have glared at each other for nearly 60 years.

Now, president Obama, like Truman, has fired an imminently capable commander. This time, it was over a perceived insult to the president.

Only those younger than me will be around to see the long-term results. Unless, of course, a nuclear-armed North Korea, or Al Qaeda wipes us all out beforehand.

The last straw.

Before Muhammad invented Islam and turned everyone into religious fanatics, the Arab world was a source of great wisdom. Arab shepherds, lying in the fields at night, gave us much of our early knowledge of astronomy. Watching stars rise in the east and set in the west each night they noticed that some of those "stars" moved along a different path. They gave them an Arab name that meant "wanderer" which word we translate in English to "planet".

The ancient Romans gave us a great alphabet and language, but they were not so good with math. They wanted to use their wonderful alphabet for counting, and chose the letters I, V, X, L and M. That part was good, because those letters formed with straight lines were easy to create in any material and were difficult to forge. But they couldn't figure out how to designate the empty box, and never came up with a zero.

The Arabs, whose alphabet failed to gain wider acceptance because it was too complicated, liked squiggly lines and used them to make numbers... one of which was "0", zero. We owe thanks to the Arabs for much of today's technology developed by the application of advanced mathematics.

The Arabs also gave us the delightful parable of the man who loaded his camel to the absolute limit of its ability to carry. As he embarked upon his journey, the wind blew a single straw onto the top of the camel's load. That straw, added to the load, broke the camel's back.

Through the ages it has reminded us that there are limits... there is a last straw! It may seem we are always able to handle one more pain... one more problem... one more abuse. But, like the old Arab's camel, there could come that single straw that is the back-breaker.

Barack Obama professes to be a friend of the Arabs. I wish one of them would remind him of their ancient parable. For, if he continues to pile abuses on American freedoms, he will surely one day add that last straw.

Tick, tick, tick...

One statistic released from the new Census is the ratio of births to deaths. Among white people it was reported to be 1:1. One birth for every death - a stable population. Among Hispanics it was 9:1. Nine births per death. Explosive population growth.

If that meant only that there would be lots of Hispanic babies, it would be wonderful. There are few things more precious than a Hispanic baby. Thick black hair, dark brown eyes. And this world certainly needs more such beautiful things.

Why should there be such a disparity between whites and Hispanics? Partly it is the philosophy of white elites against population growth, the misguided one-child-is-enough belief, pitted against the Hispanic culture of big families.

Sadly, it is in large part due to teen pregnancy. An alarming number of Hispanic girls are becoming pregnant almost as soon as they reach puberty. Generally that means a serious curtailment if not a complete end to their education. That often results in a lifetime of living on welfare.

Alarmingly, those pregnancies are not always the result of a careless relationship with a boy who also has just reached puberty. Newspaper headlines too often tell of abusive sex with young Hispanic girls by an uncle, a stepfather, or other adult man in a position of authority. A crime, in other words. An outgrowth, perhaps, of the long-held Hispanic culture of machismo - the philosophy of male superiority which more or less devalues women to the status of property.

There is another dark side to the statistic. With the Federal debt now over $13 trillion, we keep hearing people say we are burdening our children. With explosive population growth, maybe there will be enough children to handle it. Sheer population growth has pulled our chestnuts out of the fire in the past. But what happens when the children we are burdening are totally incapable of shouldering that burden?

When a baby is born to a 13-year-old mother (of any race, creed or color), there is an odds on chance that it will grow up on some form of welfare; that it will not have parental insistence, or even encouragement to stay in school; that it will not become an earner of high wages. Odds are against it becoming a taxpayer... necessary for paying down the government's debt.

Is a time bomb ticking?

Justice, American Style.

Let's say you run a stop sign. A policeman saw it and gives you a ticket. Damn! You call your lawyer for advice and he says to pay the fine. The law places the maximum fine at $50 and it would cost more than that to fight it in court - a fight you would lose.

You appear in traffic court and the judge says, "Guilty. Pay the clerk $13,333.34." What?

But, your honor, the maximum fine for running a stop sign is $50. "Doesn't matter", says the judge, "We need the money. In fact, this is not the cap... you may be asked to pay more."

The court isn't satisfied with an outright theft of your money... they go on to berate, humiliate, and do everything possible to ruin your reputation.

C'mon! That sort of thing could never happen in America!

-0-

The oil giant, BP, wanted to drill in the Gulf of Mexico, where the water was 500 feet deep, and the state of Louisiana granted permission to do so. But, BP needed further permission from the federal government, which said "No. We want you farther out from the shore, to better protect the shoreline in case of a spill."

BP replied that the water out there was 5,000 feet deep and they had no experience drilling at that depth. What if something went wrong? We're not sure it is worth it.

The Feds held firm - and besides, the law specifically places a cap of $75 million on liability in case of an accident.

BP engineers know there is a lot of oil down there! It is worth a $75 million risk.

They drill. Something goes wrong.

The Feds take 20 billion now, and advise they may want more later.

But, the Feds aren't satisfied with an outright theft of BP's money... they drag them into the White House, then to Congressional hearings, where they berate, humiliate, and do everything possible to ruin their reputation.

Ah! Justice!

Flag Day.

I just watched a TV commercial in which Fred Thompson made a pitch for a company offering a reverse mortgage. Fred was standing in front of a house. Behind him, attached to that house, a wall-mounted flag staff held an American Flag waving gently in the breeze.

I liked it. The flag was pretty and it afforded me the opportunity to watch the flag and ignore what Fred was saying. But it brought back memories of another Flag Day, about 30 years ago. We were in Toledo, Ohio - in the studios of WTOL-TV - to do a live television program. Part of the set for the program were a group of telephone operators, seated at tables, each with a red telephone to accept viewer calls which would come.

Since it was Flag Day, we bought some little American Flags, on miniature staffs, and set one next to each telephone. Ooops! A station executive made an appearance just before air time and ordered the flags removed. We protested that it was June 14, Flag Day, and we just wanted to promote the displaying of the flag! Nope, station policy prohibits using the United States Flag in any commercial announcement!

How things have changed! Notably those standards enforced by broadcast stations. Not always for the better, in my opinion. And I am not talking only about flags.

Sixty years ago, as an announcer at radio station WLDY in Ladysmith, Wisconsin, I was called into the station manager's office and reprimanded for using the word "crud" on the air. Today it is okay for the President of The United States to say, on coast-to-coast network TV, that he is learning whose ass to kick. I would have been fired for using that kind of language.

We used to ask fellow announcers, "Would you use those words in front of a class of kindergartners?" "Would you say those things in a church?" No one had to define profanity. Or pornography. Or rude behavior. Everyone understood what was unacceptable in civilized company.

The next time you see some old guy with a sad face, think of this: he may be remembering the days when civility was the rule.

Little Things

sometimes speak loudest.

June 6, 2010 was the 66th anniversary of the World War Two invasion by Allied Forces of Mainland Europe. It was a mission in which American soldiers and Marines knew there was only one way to make the invasion succeed... storm the shores faster than the Germans could kill them. The body of the force did succeed, but thousands of Americans died in the effort.

In France, where the landing occurred, civilians honored those dead, as they always do. But our president, Barack Obama, completely ignored the anniversary. Members of his administration marked the event playing summer games with no observance of the anniversary.

A lot of people were upset by the presidents action on that day, saying it just reinforced his disdain for our military. I agree, but we did not need this event to prove that president Obama hates the military.

Each time the president steps out of Marine One, the helicopter assigned for his personal transportation, a Marine, in full dress uniform stands at the bottom of the stairs - a personal guard for the president, and honors his Commander in Chief with a crisp salute.

For those who have never been in the military, the salute may not seem important. But in the Army, I learned that it takes a long time and a lot of hard work to achieve rank. (Yeah, we were a little skeptical of the second lieutenant graduates of Officer Candidate School, who became commissioned officers rather quickly!) Thus, when an enlisted man or woman confronts a commissioned officer, they salute - expressing their respect for that officer's achievements. The officer returns the salute - displaying his gratitude for the honor shown him. So, the salute is not some kind of robotic action - it is an expression of respect.

The president of the United States, as Commander in Chief, is technically a member of the military, and thus entitled to this demonstration of respect - and the salute - by all military personnel.

Now, the little thing!

When Obama leaves the helicopter, he does salute - but it is very robotic. He always looks straight ahead, never at the Marine saluting him... never acknowledging the existence of the Marine guard. What a slight!

President George Bush reacted quite differently. He always turned toward the Marine guard when he saluted, saying with that small action, "Thank you for the honor, and I, in return, honor and appreciate your service to our country."

Little thing? Yeah. A little thing that stabs me in the heart every time I see it happen.

How do you say "Louisiana"?

Back in my radio announcer days, we were given two rules for pronouncing place names. First rule, a place name is always pronounced the way the residents of the place pronounce it.

If you do not know how the locals pronounce it, you make your best effort, based on logic. If the place has what appears to be a Spanish name, try to use rules for Spanish pronunciation. San Juan would be "Sahn-wahn".

Louisiana, we were told, was named for a King Louis of France, not someone named Louise! So we should not say "Loo-wees-ee-anna". We tried to say "Loo-is-ih-anna", though occasionally we tried to imitate locals who seemed to say "loos-ih-anna"

Okay... so the French may drop the "s" and pronounce Louis as "Lou-ee".

Today, newscasters - even the big and famous ones - do say "Loo-wees-ee-anna"!

Someone please help. How are you supposed to say "Louisiana"?