Category Archives: The War

Playing it for laughs at the dictators club

Israel’s UN ambassador could be pardoned for weeping at the way the dominant nondemocratic membership singles out his democratic country for abuse. Instead, Ron Proser chooses to mock the slimy bastards.

“…when Syrian Ambassador Bashar Jaafari claimed last year that his government was not responsible for the massacres taking place in his country, Prosor took him to task. ‘If lying was an Olympic event, I have no doubt that the Syrian regime and its representatives could easily win a gold medal,’ he told the General Assembly in August 2012.”

That year the dictators club’s 193 countries passed 22 resolutions condemning Israel, but only four against any other countries. Must be hard to smile while standing in such a stinking cesspool of lies and corruption, but Proser has found a way.

Mother

Mother was the nickname of the first rhomboid tank, a gasoline-engined British behemoth designed to cross five-foot treches in 1916. Later iterations would have top turrets until the whole evolved into what we now call a tank. (Click on the picture to biggerize it.)

As an old tanker, I’ve always been fascinated by Mother. Due to her tiny compartment (most of the interior was taken up by the engine, the side guns and their ammunition) the crew of eight must have had a dreadful time: the constant noise, the nauseous fumes, the continual vibrations. And the rocking ride.

And for all her menacing appearance, a machinegun could puncture Mother’s boilerplate “armor.” For that matter, just one intrepid infantryman with a hand grenade or two slipped through a side opening could disable the whole thing, and everyone in it.

Dallas armors up, Austin shoots at traffic stop

Officer Friendly is getting more unfriendly every day.

The Dallas sheriff has acquired an MRAP (Drudge calls it a tank, but it isn’t), an armored SUV straight off the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. They’ll use it for, uh, serving warrants:

“‘Having a tactical vehicle will not only provide warrants execution with the equipment to assist in performing their jobs but will provide an overall safety arch,’ Chief Deputy Marlin Suell wrote to commissioners.”

Meanwhile, Austin PD has thankfully fired a trigger-happy cop for shooting at a traffic stop back in May. Instead of waiting behind the wheel, the stoppee stupidly got out and approached the officer. But, come on, that deserves a warning shot? And where else might the bullet have gone?

Like I’ve said before, these days the safest way to approach Officer Friendly—if you absolutely have to—is with both your hands in the air. But in a traffic stop, stay in your car, stupid!

And it would be smart to put both hands on the top of the steering wheel where they can be seen. Officer Friendly is really touchy.

UPDATE:  Another example of police militarization and, once more, it’s in Texas. Although I sometimes wonder about Dallas County.

Tell me again, why are chemical weapons so awful?

It’s bad enough that a nation’s youth wind up fighting (and dying in) the wars their elitist “leaders” start and then sit back and watch from a comfortable chair with servants bringing them refreshments. But what’s with all this WMD whoop-de-do?

Nukes I can see. Yep, you could do a real mass number on a whole city that way. Nagasaki, for instance. Also biologicals, perhaps, though they would be somewhat easier to contain the swifter you could plan, manufacture and deploy preventative pharmaceuticals.

But chemicals? They’re called “gas,” apparently to scare civilians and save lazy journalists an extra sentence or two, but they’re usually heavier-than-air and so not at all easy to disperse, even in a crowded subway car. The Tokyo sarin attacks in ’95, were bad enough, but still managed to kill only thirteen, and permanently injure about fifty, and that was on several cars.

And, when you get down to the nitty-gritty, except for the inevitable bowel voiding and vomiting, chemicals leave a pretty nice corpse for the loved ones to gather round before the planting—much nicer than a pile of steaming offal, which would be the result of even an incompetent machinegunning inside that aforementioned subway car.

But, somehow, machineguns escaped the WMD label. Pure twaddle.

Yom Kippur, forty years ago: Lu Yehi

Whatever it is about decadal anniversaries, they seem to affect everyone. Hence today’s commemoration of Israel’s Yom Kippur War when the Syrians, etc. attacked a few hours after sundown and into the high holy day.

It was a near thing, especially in the Golan Heights, where the relic hulks of a few destroyed Syrian and Israeli tanks remain at strategic points on the landscape as permanent reminders.

Snoopy the Goon’s preferred reminder is Lu Yehi (May it be):  “…written by our late and much beloved Naomi Shemer 40 years ago, during the war, is part of our collective inheritance and is forever associated with that war.”

Go there and listen. Here are the lyrics in English.

 

ALL WE PRAY FOR
There is still a white sail on the horizon
Opposite a heavy black cloud
All that we ask for – may it be 

And if in the evening windows
The light of the holiday candles flickers
All that we seek – may it be

May it be, may it be – Please – may it be
All that we seek – may it be.

What is the sound that I hear
The cry of the shofar and the sound of drums
All that we ask for – may it be

If only there can be heard within all this
One prayer from my lips also
All that we seek – may it be

May it be…

Within a small, shaded neighborhood
Is a small house with a red roof
All that we ask for, may it be

This is the end of summer, the end of the path
Allow them to return safely here
All that we seek, may it be

May it be…

And if suddenly, rising from the darkness
Over our heads, the light of a star shines
All that we ask for, may it be

Then grant tranquility and also grant strength
To all those we love
All that we seek, may it be

May it be…

 

 

May you have an easy fast tonight and tomorrow as you think of these things.

Will there be a Christmas truce, too?

It’s tempting to follow Norman Podhoretz’s theory that Obozo’s Syria Circus isn’t ineptitude but a nefarious plot to make the USA look stupid. Because otherwise, with its shifting claims of really tough strikes, but not too really tough, mind you, it’s clowns all the way down.

But it could be our favorite Nobel Peace Prize winner has decided he actually likes rattling sabers now and then and he’s trying to channel LBJ and his turn-the-screw attacks on North Viet Nam.

They were supposed to, you know, bring the Commies to the Paris peace table, whether square, rectangular or round, so that Lyndon could get re-elected for having won an unpopular war. And if so does this mean Obongo will eventually be offering Baby Assad a Christmas truce?

UPDATE: Looks like Lurch’s “trust us” b.s. turned into an apparently offhand remark about letting Russia secure Baby Assad’s chemical weapons which has now morphed into Obongo’s new no-strike-Syria policy. And after all that two-bit histrionics. Geeze Louise. There’s obviously no Xmas “truce” in the offing now.

MORE:  Or Not. Is Obozo being played by the Russians? Who better?

Save a local retailer: shop til you drop

Sad but true. But the fact is we have a consumer economy and if we don’t consume it fails. Especially since Obongo, Pelosi and Reid aren’t doing a damn thing to help. Al Q keeps hitting out at Wall Street, too dumb to realize that finance is a movable feast. As long as they leave the malls alone. But the economy is so bad that retailers are starting their Christmas sales now. Save a local retailer: Shop ’til you drop.

Via Op-For