“Never did I imagine that the Americans would elect a president who would give open support to the Muslim Brotherhood, or that a Secretary of State would take as one of her closest advisers a woman whose family and background are connected closely to the highest levels of the Muslim Brotherhood organization,” Howard Rotberg, on the Freedom Press blog.
Well, there is the amusing part that the close adviser turned out to be so dumb that she married a flasher. But not all of us voted for the black moron who sucks up to terrorists and we won’t vote for the Lizard Queen, either.
I’d just add that Mr. R.’s remark therein that Slick Willie disarmed American soldiers on their bases in 1993, setting up Fort Hood for a massacre, is pure BS. American soldiers have not, at least since the 1960s, carried arms on their bases except when in training or on guard duty. Nor were officers then allowed to carry personal firearms. I know the IDF does it, but that’s a holdover from 1973 when the invading Syrians caught them temporarily unarmed.
Via Simply Jews.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 
Unarmed on base is one thing. Something quite different is the fact that for decades our guards weren’t allowed loaded weapons, the higher-ups always fretting about the possibility of an accidental discharge (or ‘alfa deltas’ as we called them in my day). This was indicative of the notion that we couldn’t trust our own men.
The height of this nonsense was when the guards in Beirut in 1983 frantically tried to load their weapons as the truck bomber blew right past them and into the Marine Barracks.
Their were occasional – publicized – instances thereafter of guards carrying loaded weapons during times of tension, but that meant that the loaded magazines were inserted into the weapon, but never a round chambered. Invariably, this would typically last about two weeks before we returned to the carrying of a weapon just for the ceremonial purpose of looking tough. I spent quite a few years during this time in and around the European (and nearby) theatres and saw cases of this firsthand.
A related syndrome is what I called the Barn Door principle, exemplified by the attacks on the Rome and Vienna airports in 1985. Our solution? Nobody flies through Rome and Vienna. That’s it. In my capacity, I didn’t fly anywhere, unless it was on a US military aircraft.
Thanks for the info. Maybe you can explain something I’ve always wondered about. Which is why the Marines put all those guys in one building? Instead of applying the infantry’s oldest rule: dispersal. They were just asking for it.
Because Ronald Reagan had them do it that way, Dick.
You’re kidding. I know LBJ picked bombing targets in NVN, but Reagan made siting decisions for ground troops?
The whole Beirut situation was screwed up far beyond my ability to answer in a timely fashion, and it included an enormous amount of higher-command interference. But Reagan had nothing to do with the barracks situation – that’s ridiculous.
Part of the reason that the building was considered safe was that it was well within the airport boundaries and heavily sand-bagged, with mortars considered the only real threat. Nobody anticipated the huge truck bomb hitting a building of that size, and the fact that one bomb of that sort could take out the entire thing.
I might have to add the Beirut bombing to my list of “I really need to get around to writing about this” list.
Thanks, I’ll look forward to your post. I remember being incensed when it happened, because I was then not that far from my time in VN and it reminded me of the incompetence of the generals and field officers we had labored under.
“and it reminded me of the incompetence of the generals and field officers we had labored under.” AND politicians.
Darkwater I remember that also, even though it was after my time. Anybody who thinks the military is not susceptible to political correctness is delusional.
They certainly proved that with the Fort Hood massacre.
I know Ronald Reagan did not determine the barracks location or defensive posture of the Marines. I was just talking sh*t, because he ordered them into Lebanon for no discernible reason, and he was CinC, therefore, it’s still all on him.
Worship the man as you will, he still did some f*cked up sh*t, just like all presidents.
I didn’t vote for Reagan (I was a Democrat at the time) and so I’m not waving his banner now. He certainly was a pol, like all of them, more concerned with show and notoriety than substance.
Although his economic policies did reverse Carter’s high-inflation legacy and start a long trend of economic prosperity which saw my home and rental property rise in value. And his military buildup did collapse the Soviet Union, which was all to the good.
I’ve been tickled watching Obongo’s fruitless attempt to get a coalition together to bomb Syria for no other earthly purpose other than his own aggrandizement. I wish all presidents who set out to kill people to make themselves look tough were similarly humiliated.