united states

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It Is Time to End the Ukraine War!


Twenty months ago, Ukraine was invaded by a power purportedly much stronger than it. But as time has gone by, Ukrainians have risen to the cause and for the most part, held the Russians at bay.

Right now, the United States is the big dog on the block where the free world is concerned. But the United States seems to have abdicated its responsibilities when Ukraine is concerned going back to 2014. At the time of the Obama Administration, the Russian invasion of Crimea was a clear and present danger to the free people of Ukraine and, even more, to the rest of the world. Obama chose to do nothing.

During the Trump Administration, President Trump cozied up to Pres. Putin of Russia and put Ukraine in harm’s way by his ridiculous accusations towards that country. He said nothing when he knew the Russian propaganda machine was spouting its lies of Ukraine being run by neo-Nazis. Of course, with a Jewish president of the country, it was obvious to any thinking person that such was not the case.

And now we have to overly cautious Pres. Biden doing well with sending aid to Ukraine but failing by not having taken NATO to task and said that a large-scale land war was needed to resolve the conflict in a quick manner.

If the United States is to be the guardian of the free world, then it must act accordingly. And right now, there is not peace for the free world country of Ukraine. The problem of sending effective weapons systems to Ukraine was that Ukraine relied largely on Soviet built systems, rifles, aircraft, etc. The U.S. sent system to Ukraine and then had to see that Ukrainian soldiers were trained on these systems. That takes month in almost every case. And now it wants to send F-16 aircraft there, but it will take a full year to train pilots and their support crews. That is a year Ukraine does not have, even if it will be very effective in its future.

Ukraine has proven Russia to be little more than a paper tiger which unfortunately has a large cache of nuclear weapons. Sabre rattle as much as Putin enjoys, he knows full well that he is still in a position of Mutually Assured Self Destruction (MADD) with the United States. And even if he gave the order for his generals to unleash some of his battlefield nukes, it is unlikely the order would be followed as all military people are extremely aware of the consequences of such actions.

Right now, the United States has an entire division, the 101st Airborne, headquartered in Romania. Why? This was simply a defensive action against the possible expansion of Putin’s war. But it is the first time since the end of WW2 that the United States has had an entire division stationed anywhere in Europe. This means our government is extremely aware of the threat that Russia maintains.

As someone who served many years in the U.S. Army, I can tell you war is never as good as peace. But there is a war, and it has implications which extend far beyond Ukraine. There is Belarus which is entirely aligned with Russia, and which has allowed the Russian military to use its territory for its war against Ukraine.

It is time for the U.S. to announce to NATO and the world that it will now actively support Ukraine with its great air power. It will also send its fleet into the Black Sea as Russia has blockaded commerce, which is also a threat to the world, especially Africa. This type of military action does not invite battlefield nukes, but it will show Russia, China and North Korea, that we as a country grow weary of the evil they try to spread.

Russia does not have a large navy and can ill afford to lose any of its ships of war. And in an air war, the United States is clearly superior, and any large air conflict could very significantly reduce Russia’s ability to wage war in that manner.

Lest anyone doubt it, our military already has solid plans for just that sort of conflict, but it can do nothing without the President’s stamp of approval. We cannot go back and be like we were in 1940, isolationist. That is how we are acting right now because the President knows the American people do not have the stomach for another ground war. But an air and sea war are a different animal and a way for the United States to expel all Russian forces from all of Ukraine to include Crimea and the black sea.

That done, Ukraine’s entrance into NATO would be very easy.

And so, when it comes to world peace, who is the enemy of peace? To quote a very old comic, “we have met the enemy, and it is us.”

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The Death of the Earth?


For a month now, I have seen on television the record high temperatures being realized in southwestern America and now it is moving towards the plain’s states. But this is not just an American phenomenon. Across the globe, countries are being ravaged by heat waves. The Saharah Desert is moving more southward. The polar ice of both poles is melting at an alarming rate. And today, I heard on NBC news that the water temperature in the Florida Keys is 101!

In the north polar regions, many animals rely upon a polar cap just to survive. The polar bear is the one being hurt the most buy our climate change. What happens in the north pole ice disappears completely? What happens in the Greenland glacier melts away? What happens in the ice shelves of the south pole disappear? What happens is there becomes an ecological disaster!

Since the dawn of industrialization in the 19th century, the world has been moving towards this moment in time. People seem to be either blissfully unaware or just refuse the looming disaster. Our planet survives because of a synergy between all the animals on earth, from the microscopic to the largest of whales. There are whales that eat only plankton. What happens to them when the plankton disappears? What happens when water temperatures rise to high for certain fish and mammals that cannot adjust? And what happens to people when their water supply and food supply dwindles?

People may not believe that survival of the human race as it is, is at stake. We must cut carbon emissions to zero and fast. A scientific project for the year 2030 was 7 years off! That project has been met this year.

Scientist has warned that a rise in the average temperature of the earth but just 2 degrees Fahrenheit will kill off many species of animal that are part of the food chain and thereby cause a food chain calamity. We are a part of that food chain and yet we do very little.

The United States, China, and India are among the biggest contributors to global warning. China is still building coal fired power plants. Coal is a huge polluter!

We need only look at the planet Venus to find out what happens when a planet’s upper atmosphere is so thick with gases that hold in the sun’s heat to see a possible future for our planet.

The answer is really simple. All the peoples of the earth must switch to a power grid of electricity powered by the sun and stop the usage of fossil fuels and nuclear fuels as well. Nuclear power plants are heat polluters because of the great amount of heat they give off. We have a number of carbon zero methods of electrical generation: the sun itself, wind, water of rivers and the water of the oceans. In some places the use of volcanic steam is possible.

Our technology is evolving but it can evolve faster if the demand for is grows faster. The wind farms of today will look nothing like those of the future. The use of solar panels should become a mainstream part of every country’s power grid.

We have two choice and only two choices. We can continue as we are and guarantee a future of desperation world-wide or we can use the technology that is at our hands to change the course of our human existence.

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Study: World has 9 years to avert [climate] calamity


First, I must give credit to the Boston Globe, November 12, 2022, p. A4, for that heading, it being, excepting the setoff word, climate, a direct copy of its subtitle to “War may have put climate goals out of reach.”

I found this article absolutely stunning until I read its contents and then did a bit of research. It amazes me the amount climate change deniers still in the world today. Even more, those in political power who take no, or little action towards changing their nation’s responsibility towards reducing our greenhouse gas epidemic. It must be noted that most scientists, probably an overwhelming number, are agreement over our impended doom from these emissions.

The chart below lists the greenhouses emission by each country’s total in descending order. Notice the United States, which claims to be doing so much, is in the number 2 position! This is entirely unacceptable. Number 3 India is an interesting case that along with its status on this chart, it also has the ignominious reputation of have amount the 10 most polluted cities in the world, mixed in are Pakistan and other 3rd world countries.

Conservative Americans are amount the first to deny global warning and liberals are shouting about it. But in truth, it is the liberals who are failing the most simply because most compromise on issues where holding your ground is called for.

For the United States, there needs to be a much more concerted effort to reduce CO2 emissions by about 80% and well before 2031, the deadline. The United States cannot be a world leader in this fight when it comes in 2nd in total emissions worldwide. But the above chart is only referencing CO2 pollution. The chart below is referencing Methane pollution for the purpose of this discussion. I have not been able, thus far, to find a country-by-country accounting for this sort of pollution. In the United States, however, two of the most prolific forms of this comes for natural gas leakage at drilling sites and their pipelines, and also from fracking where the search for oil always finds a collection of natural gas which is supposed to be burned off but that only adds to the CO2 pollution.

For at least 30 years now, Europeans have been taking the problem with pollution seriously. Many cities, excepting England, have taken the tack of making their inner cities less friendly to automobiles, and in some cases, banning them altogether. In place of automobiles, they have doubled down of rail transportation and well set out bicycle ways.

Such tactics in the United States would be met with heavy opposition and politicians bent on saving their political butts would bend to that opposition rather than doing the right thing.

Consider, there is no city in the United States that can properly handle 4 lanes of traffic entering its limits with any ease at all, leading to a 40-mile commute taking as much as 1.5 hours or more. All cities on the East Coast plus Chicago, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, and a host of other cities cannot continue to maintain these roads and the problems that go with them for much longer.

Consider that the average length of a railroad coach is 67′ and that of an automobile almost 15′. Simple math tells us that even the 4 automobiles, were each carrying 3 individuals totaling 12 total is a far cry for the 60 to 100 passengers a single railroad car can carry. A rapid transit car can carry at least 50 people, light rail cars and buses the same. Highway maintenance on average, costs $14,500 per year. By shutting down one lane of a 4-lane highway in both directions for 25 miles saves $750k per year. Now, take the New Jersey turnpike which extends 41 miles from the Garden State parkway to Exit 7, Bordentown and is 8 lanes wide. Remove the 4 inner lanes in each direction, a total of 328 miles, and you have a total savings of $4.7 million a year. New Jersey has an exemplary commuter rail system as well-as an extensive bus system.

In probably every city their existing commuter rail, rapid transit, light rail and buses systems would have to be both modernized and expanded first. But this would give the public several years to plan on the eventual shut down of highway traffic lanes.

Such a bold step forward would cost in the 10s of trillions of dollars to properly implement. Couple that with all cities denying entry to their city center by private automobiles, another public screaming point, and inner-city pollution declines dramatically.

Right now, when it comes to public transportation, the United States is little more than a third-world country. Countries like Italy, Germany, Holland, France and a host of others, put the U.S. to shame in their approach to public transportation. Even China, the world’s greatest polluter, has a rail transportation superior to ours.

Why is this true. First, it America’s continuing love affair with the automobile, next, politicians of all stripes failing to inform the public of what should, by now, be painfully obvious, global warming is happening, and at an ever-increasing rate, just ask Floridians.

There is, however, one form of public transportation, which is one of the largest polluters in the U.S., the nation’s airlines! How do we reduce that? Simple, convince Americans to take AMTRAK on medium length journeys over air travel. This, of course, will require a heavy investment in AMTRAK but the rewards far outweigh the costs. Already, the Northeast Corridor of AMTRAK, from Boston to Washington DC, is heavily traveled by businessmen as well as private travelers. But routes such as Cleveland to Chicago, Atlanta to Miami, Dallas to Houston, Chicago to St. Louis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Detroit.

Americans, living near to large cities, must learn a new way of getting around or be culpable for getting the globe to “point of no return,” that point where warming accelerates at a rate no one can stop. Is that nine years hence? I do not know but it seems many scientists are thinking that way. Who are you going to believe, your next-door neighbor, you politicians, or the scientists?

I am only showing the pollution type below, that of “particulate matter” and in this case, that of plastics.

On final note on this. When I was taking a course in Astrophysics at Harvard University, my professor made a point of saying that anything which produces heat adds to global warming. That polluter is nuclear power and everything else which has the side effect of producing heat.

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NATO and Ukraine


When last I wrote of this war, I was of the opinion that NATO would be forced to support Ukraine or watch it fall to Russia. I was wrong. And for the small bit, I am grateful. But I am not in the least satisfied with NATO’s response, and, as its leading member, the response of the United States.

What I have seen of Russia’s army is that it is not well trained and lacking in good command and control on the battlefield. Some have suggested that Ukraine could win this war. It cannot. At least not on its own. Russia has been through this before in Chechnya and Afghanistan. They won the former while losing the latter. But in both cases, Russian was willing to take on the battle for years. This we must remember.

I have found President Biden’s response has been slow and lacking. I voted for Biden and considering the state of the world today, it was a good choice. Still, he lacks decisiveness. He has bungled the request of Ukraine to get MIG-29 jets from Poland. Everyone in power was in fear of Putin, and it showed! The simple answer to transferring those jets was to allow Ukrainian pilots to fly them home. There are only a handful and flying below radar should be easy for experienced pilots which Ukraine does have!

In the past, the United States has had no problem with getting military advisors secreted into combat areas. The claim that Ukrainian military lack training in anti-ship weapons is true but getting them trained would have been easily accomplished in the opening days of the war.

That the United States, and President Biden, continues the refrain of not wanting to escalate the war by making Putin angry is beyond the pale. Putin has been increasingly escalating this war without incurring similar response from Ukraine. That he has Sabre rattled about nuclear weapons is something our military is ready with a response, and Putin knows this! He has called our bluff and we have succumbed.

NATO and the United States needs to act boldly. They need to come to terms with adding Ukraine to NATO. Putin knows this is on the agenda but has called the West’s bluff by stating he would consider such an action as an escalation! Really? And most recently he has said that if Ukraine agrees to never join NATO, he might be willing to end the war. Of course, he has also said that Ukraine must cede more territory to Russia.

It is now established that China is unwilling to come to the rescue of Russia with military aid. It does, however, supply humanitarian aid. While in Ukraine, Russia has not allowed for humanitarian aid anywhere in Ukraine.

With things as they are now, President Biden and NATO have allowed things to progress to a point where giving Ukraine proper aid is greatly reduced. But there is a way around this that was employed a long time ago, the United Nations. During the Korean War, the troops fighting North Korea were declared UN troops, though the uniforms were those of the nations involved. Why have we not tried, at least, to use this to combat Putin and put an end to the hostilities?

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War In Europe?


I am calling upon my over 25 years of either being in the military and as a Federal Employee who worked closely with the U.S. Air Force. My active military service was entirely with the U.S. Army. When I first saw Russia invading Ukraine, I, like so many others, Putin included, felt this would be a short war with an ultimate Russian victory. It seems we underestimated the resolve of the Ukrainian people. It would also seem the Putin either has no sense of history or is ignorant of it. In 1940, the Soviet Union tried to invade Finland as it felt that country should naturally fall under Soviet control. They were wrong! In what is called “The Winter War,” the Finnish people initially defeated the Russian army which no one had expected. Finland only had what we today call a National Guard, no regular army troops. But as with Ukraine, the Soviet Union entirely underestimated the resolve of the Finns. Later, however, Russia did take over Finland.

I still think it unlikely that Ukraine will ultimately enjoy victory. The Russian army and its resources are just too vast. But one thing I have found surprising is the lack of command and control of the Russian forces. Command and control simply means how an army tactically attacks an enemy, First of all, Russia very poorly set up its logistics. That means how supplies are brought from its rear areas to its forward areas. This is an extremely important part of command and control. But it also shows how Russia has not allowed the ideas of modern warfare to exist within its military. That is, when I was in the military during the Soviet era, we knew that the Russian military was what is called “stove piped,” or that its military is ruled entirely from the very top straight down to its most elemental parts, the foot soldier. Soviet leadership did not allow for much in the way of command decision at the battalion level which in the American army is highly prized. This explains the sort of helter-skelter operation of the Russian military in Ukraine, the air forces do not talk to the army and the infantry does not talk to the artillery, etc.

This leads us to the situation presently in Ukraine. The city of Lviv has just endured its first attack by Russian missiles. Lviv is extremely close to the Polish border which we have all become acquainted with through news reports. But this also brings back the idea of command and control. Will the top Russian militarists know to stop at the Polish border lacking other information? Or will it simply continue onward until told to stop? Or is Putin already scheming to attack Poland and tell his people it was NATO’s aggression that forced his hand? No one knows the mind of Putin which is a scary thought. But our military, since the Korean Conflict, has made it a priority to “war game” with the idea of having a nearly fully formulated idea of how to proceed in the event of any military engagement. Although I have no first-hand knowledge of this, I suspect that NATO has been doing this as well.

That said, we are left with three basic possibilities of the Russian aggression. First, Russia defeats Ukraine and ceases its attacks. Second, Russia either invades Poland, which it dearly desires, or it invades the Baltic Countries, and a conventional war is started. The third, and scariest, is that Russia uses battlefield nuclear arms to succeed. That of course can easily lead to a nuclear war, something no one, including Russia wants. But this is where the sanity of Putin comes into play. Make no doubt about it, Putin’s office which is called a “Presidency,” is a convenient cover for the dictatorship he has evolved. Putin has for a long time acted unilaterally and has never had a fear of cutting off the heads, figuratively, of anyone who opposes him.

It is my belief that Putin is using Ukraine as a testing ground for what he truly wants, a return to the Soviet iron curtain countries of pre-1990. That would include Hungary, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and other countries. Our best hope is that he realizes that his military is hardly prepared to take on such a heady task and will stop with Ukraine. But if he does engage NATO, I have every confidence that NATO will reign supreme in the end and that Putin will be arrested and brought to task, with his sycophants, to answer for the war crimes he has committed. But once again, the face of the world will greatly change.

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Peace in the Middle East


The largest part of the political dialogue today is over the containment and ultimate elimination of ISIS and other groups like ISIS. I find it scary to hear leading Republican candidates talking about carpet bombing and send large number of troops into the Middle East to resolve this problem. The Democrats seem to have a little more palatable response but still quite imperfect. Is there a perfect response? Yes, but no one knows what it is.

I think it high time we give both Afghanistan and Iraq a 30-day notice of complete removal of all our troops from their respective countries. The United States has overspent in both areas trying to bring about a peace which history shows has never existed for any extended length of time. The bottom line is, and contrary to what both major parties claim, our major interests in Iraq lie entire in its huge oil reserves and nothing else. That is simply irresponsible.

Now I am not suggesting we abandon these countries entirely, that is irresponsible. What I am suggesting is that we provide intelligence support, logistical support and air support. Both the government of Turkey and Saudi Arabia have allowed for our military presence within their boundaries and both countries are quite stable.

During last night’s Democrat debate, I heard exactly one suggestion on how to carry this war to a successful completion. It was that ground military forces fighting ISIS be made up entirely of Moslem troops. In this aspect the United States can play a key role. We can certainly train and arm such armies to a level where their success is at least likely if not probable.

The fly in the ointment is Iran. Claims have been made that Iran sponsors terrorism. President Obama has done a masterful job of getting Iran to open up its nuclear program to inspection. This has given the Middle East, and Israel in particular, a feeling of safety where nuclear arms are involved. In return, the United States has freed up here-to-fore frozen Iranian assets. I suggest that through diplomatic channels a deal can be made with Iran to further reduce existing sanctions by getting Iran to end any state sponsored terrorism which now exists. I think a partnership between Turkey and Iran could help in ending Iran’s isolation from the world by it gaining a powerful and trustworthy trading partner in the Moslem world which Turkey is.

Contrary to what many Americans believe, there are more peaceful countries in the Middle East than there are those suffering civil war and terror. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Iran, the Emirates, and Kuwait need to enter into a mutual defense coalition. Even though it is experiencing a great deal of unrest, Iraq too needs to be included. This coalition, like NATO, would help preserve the peace in the Middle East from those who would have it otherwise. I have left out Lebanon because it is fairly evenly split between Moslems and Christians, 54 to 46 respectively, and might prove unwise. That is unless the Christians of Lebanon thought it a good idea.

There is no question that many countries in the Middle East need military aid from the United States. The only question is, in what form? A unified Middle Eastern army made up entirely of Moslem soldiers make the most sense in ending the strife that region now endures. The United States will not be shirking its responsibilities to Middle Eastern countries by removing all our ground personnel from Iraq but maintaining military support through other means. Our removing ourselves may actually help bring about a regional peace much sooner than our staying there as we are.

 

 

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Is History Repeating Itself in the Ukraine?


It is said that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.  In 1938 Adolph Hitler annexed a part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland.  His claim was that it was mostly inhabited by ethnic Germans which was true.  The Czech government lacked the military authority to resist the takeover.  England and France railed at this action, which Hitler called Anschluss, but did nothing of consequence.  Of course that was only the first step in Hitler’s desire to control all of Eastern Europe which history tells us he eventually did by late 1939.  In 1940 he turned on his “ally,” Stalin, and invaded the Soviet Union.  Prior to Hitler’s invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland he amassed his troops along the borders of those countries.  He invaded Poland on the premise that the Poles had actually attacked first, a total fabrication of course.

It is scary to watch the events taking place along the Russian and Ukraine border and not find the parallels with 1938 and 1939.  Putin has send at least 40,000 troops to that border region.  What are his intentions?  The Ukrainians have shown absolutely not hostile intent towards Russia.  To wit, thus far, they have acquiesced to Russia’s takeover of the Crimea.  To be sure, Crimea is mostly ethnic Russians but the land itself belongs to the Ukraine.  Russia has with malice taken territory sovereign to the Ukrainian republic.

Respect of a countries borders though a time-honored tradition is replete with skirmishes and wars over those borders.  Russia’s history tells us they have been particularly pugnacious is that respect.  The Czars of Russia felt it their right to occupy Poland and other lands they claimed some ancient, albeit specious, right to.  The old Soviet Union occupied much of Eastern Europe after 1945 by simply refusing to remove its troops following the defeat of Germany.  While countries like Poland, Hungary, and Lithuania continued to exist as entities, the did so only as puppets of the Soviet regime.  And even when Soviet troops were removed, those troops of any particular country were always subservient to the Russian army and the desires of the Kremlin.  The Hungarian uprising of 1956 showed the desire of the general population to remove itself from Soviet control only to be put down.

It is my fear the Putin and his Russian government is seeking a return to the days of the old Soviet.  We must remember that Putin is a product of that old regime.  He rose to prominence within the KGB.  The despotism and authoritarianism of the old Soviet seems to still exist within the likes of Putin.  It would not be surprising to find that Putin’s true desire is to return Russia to the old Soviet style government.  Wise men caution us that the best way to judge what a person is going to do is by what he has done in the past.

As much as I despise the idea of war, I think the United States and its allies need to ask the Ukrainian government if it would like a NATO presence in its country to protect against any Russian ideas of invasion.  If there is one thing NATO learn well, hopefully, during the cold-war years, is that a strong military presence facing its foes is an excellent deterrent.  The United States, in particular, needs to state that it is willing to at least offer, and follow through, such support.

The people of the Ukraine have the right to self-determination and the Russian government has absolutely no right to any land sovereign to the Ukrainian people.

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Crisis in the Urkraine — Part 2


Depending upon who you ask, the Crimea is either still a part of the Ukraine or a part of Russia.  Fortunately the events which brought about this situation all happened in the past 6 months meaning they should all be fresh in everyone’s mind.  It started with the Ukrainian people toppling their pro-Russian President and replacing him with a popular official.  This unrest within the Ukraine gave President Putin all the ammunition he needed to stir up a little trouble in Crimea, and that he did.  And just to put a sharp point on his intensions, he sent thousands of Russian troops to the area.  He was obviously provoking the government of the Ukraine into doing something aggressive.  But he was also offering solace to the large population of Russians who live in Crimea.  The message being, “Feel safe.  We are here for  you.”  It did not matter to him that any incursi0n on the sovereign soil of the Ukraine was an act of war, regardless of the vote the Crimean parliament took.  Crimea was, and is, the lawful territory of the Ukrainian people.  Putin has snubbed his nose at a country’s right to sovereignty by placing his troops on the Ukrainian military compounds while running out the Ukrainian troops.  He is daring the Ukrainian government, and anyone else, to do something about it.

The U.S. response to all this was to first put sanctions of many Russian businessmen who do business in the U.S.  Then they made a number of Russian diplomats persona non grata who were ordered to leave the U.S.  And finally, we are sending troops to Lithuania and the Ukraine.  It would not surprise me that troops will be placed in Poland as well.  The Ukraine is not a part of NATO however it borders countries which are to include Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Turkey, all of whom have a vested interest in maintaining peace in their sphere of influence.  And all, except Turkey, have no desire to once again fall under the rule of Moscow after they worked so hard to escape it.

One fear I have heard is that this could be the beginning of a whole new “cold war.”  I hope not but having armed camps along the Russian, Ukrainian, and Crimean borders certainly makes things look that way.  Is this Russia testing the waters to possibly re-occupying a country like Belarus?  Estonia? Latvia?  Putin has absolutely no good excuse for sending his troops into a foreign country regardless of what the residents of that area voted.  No only is it an act of aggression, but an unmistakable act of war.

But we in the U.S. have declared ourselves to be the ally of the Ukrainian people.  And to that end we must give them all the support, within reason, that they need.  This is a case, however, where war materials, along with adequate training are about as far as we should go.  This is not our war but the Ukrainians are our friends, and we must respect all their requests.

The only acceptable result is a total Russian withdrawal from Crimea.

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A Little Known Paradise


In 1941, when the Imperial Government of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, it was Japan’s reaction to the United States flexing its power by denying the Japanese access to iron and other materials necessary for an industrial country.  The United States was mainly reacting to the Japanese invasion of China and its repeated massacres of the Chinese people, particularly the “rape of Nanking.”

In 1944, the United States undertook a very ambitious operation to retake the western Pacific islands, the Marianas, the Marshalls, New Guinea, and other territories.  Most of these islands lie within 10 degrees of the equator, and many a small atolls.  The fighting the occurred on many of these islands was so intense that to this day live ordinance is still washing up on the shores.

In the early 1980s I had the good fortunate to work on one of those island atolls, Kwajalein which is a part of the Marshall Islands.  Kwajalein itself, though tiny, endured nearly a week of intense fighting before the U.S. won.  To this day a tank from the battle still sits where it became immobilized on a coral reef as-well-as a number of Japanese ships that were sunk in the Kwajalein Atoll lagoon.

kwajalein

kwaj

The runway in the picture above is about 1.2 miles long, to give you an idea of how small this, the largest in the atoll, is.

Kwajalein is the world’s largest atoll.  The maps above will give you an idea of its location in the Pacific and a map of the islands of the Kwajalein Atoll itself.  The picture is of the main island of Kwajalein, also known as Kwajalein, that sits a the bottom of the atoll.  It is also called the most remote inhabited place on earth.  That is because access to it is somewhat limited.  The islands tend to be under 1 mile in length and where most large jets require at least that for take-off, you must take a small aircraft to get there.  The Marshall Islands sit 2400 miles west south west of Honolulu and about an equal distance from Australia.

roi

In this picture of Roi-Namur the runway is 4000 feet long, and the island, as it lays along the reef, only about 1.2 miles long.

This picture above is off the island Roi-Namur which sits at the very top of the atoll and where I worked while there.  On the island of Roi-Namur sit two radars which track both near-earth and deep space satellites.  I was involved in the near-earth tracking station known at Altair.

roi beach

This picture is of the beach on Roi-Namur.  It is typical of the beaches to be found on the lagoon side of the atoll.  The lagoon is a relatively shallow portion of an atoll that sits between the islands.  An atoll is the coral top of an ancient volcano.  This being true, the ocean side of the atoll represents the mountain side which typically drop off many thousands of feet into the depths of the ocean around it.

The temperature varies between 76 and 85 on any given day year-round.  The water temperature sits at about 80 year-round too.  The island is basically immune from typhoons and other heavy wind storms because of its close proximity to the equator. While the storms may form near-by they move northward away from the islands well before the gain much force.  It is also nearly immune from Tsunamis because it lacks the gradual beach incline needed to concentrate the energy of the Tsunami into a large wave.  If a tsunami were to hit the island it would flow past it relatively unnoticed.

Many people for the U.S. have gone snorkeling on the coral reefs of the Caribbean and Hawaii.  But the coral of those places pale in comparison to the relatively virgin reefs of the western-Pacific atolls.  Although the Marshall, Solomon, and Caroline island groups each have plenty of resorts, they are so out-of-the-way that few people ever consider them.

The estimated population of the entire Marshall Islands in 2010 is only about 70,000 permanent residents spread among 29 separate atolls and another 5 individual islands.  Most of the islands do not allow automobiles.  The islands are all so small that travel on any single island is reserved to foot traffic.

The Marshallese people are  not Polynesian but Micronesian, a subtle but important distinction.  They settled the islands some 4000 years ago but their origin is unknown.  Today’s Marshallese are, unfortunately, almost entirely dependent upon the United States for their existence.  Since the 19th century they have been subjected to Dutch, German, and Japanese rule so that by the time World War II ended they no longer had the survival skills of their ancestors.  But they are a very friendly people who ask for little and are more than willing to give much.

The Kwajalein Atoll is a veritable aquarium of strange and exotic sea creatures.  The fish alone rival any that can be seen in the finest of aquariums.  There many types of rare and beautiful cowries, snail-like mollusks, hermit crabs, and even lobsters.  While snorkeling is was within arm’s reach of a large yellow-fin tuna.

cowrie

The picture above is of cowries native to the atoll.  Some, the tiger cowrie in particular, can fetch a hefty price on the open market.

Because of the nature of its business, defense, Kwajalein is not open to the public but other atolls in the Marshall Islands are and are equally as beautiful.  Majuro is such an island and an example of its beaches is below.

majuro

Relative to almost anywhere else in the world one can visit, the Marshall Islands may well be among the most pristine.  I cannot recommend them highly enough, particularly those of you who are truly tired of the crowded usual tourist destinations.

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Why Does the United States Still Have 5113 Nuclear Warheads?


Here is a little exercise for you.  Find a map of the world and count out 5113 cities and other targets that would be worth dropping a nuclear bomb on.  That mean every country in the world because if you start eliminating “friendly” countries like most of Europe, all of South America and most of Africa, along with a number of Asian and sub-Asian countries your choices decline quickly.  If you consider that dropping a single warhead upon one city is enough to totally destroy it and the same is so for all military targets, what is left?

There was a time the U.S. had in excess of 31,000 nuclear warheads!  Those were the days of “mutually assured destruction.”  The acronym for that would be “MAD” which seems about right. The idea was, if the USSR struck first we could not only return in kind but with enough force to assure their destruction.  Well, Russia has about 1200 warheads these days, China about 300, and a few scattered around the rest of the world.  Why do we have any at all?

The horrors of the atom bomb were well displayed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The after effects were felt for decades.  No further proof was necessary.  The USSR wanted what we had and did such.  Then we wanted our bombs to be larger which we did.  At one point 100-megaton bombs were being exploded.  There was a sick sort of glory associated with each such accomplishment.  But after a while the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks stopped above ground testing and then all testing.  Finally it limited the amount of weapons any country could own.

It has been 67 years since man first unleashed the power of the atom in weaponry.  You would think that by this time we would know quite enough that ownership of over 5000 such weapons should be something of a national embarrassment.  Not only is it excessive, it is also extremely expensive to maintain such force.

There was a time when every warhead was designated for a particular target, even those carried aboard aircraft.  I would hope that such days have passed but with an arsenal of over 5000 I cannot help but wonder if many are still specifically targeted.  To me that says that some planners still believe there is an ocassion where use of nuclear weapons still exists.  I want to know what circumstance that is.  Russia is no longer a threat of any sort.  China is happy within her borders and does no sabre rattling at all, unlike the U.S.  There is North Korea, of course, but its ability to deliver any of its nukes is still quite questionable.  Who does that leave?  Of whom are we afraid?  Or are we still supporting some secret agenda?

I firmly believe that in the future the ownership of more than a dozen or so nuclear arms will be deemed as sheer foolishness, and in some senses provocative.  The ownership of such weapons will be purely deterrent.  Our statement will be that we have a few that we can guarantee delivery to the target of our choice should the occasion arise.  I expect such nukes would be the property of the U.S. Navy upon its submarines, and that all other nuclear weapons would be declared obsolete.

The United States defense industry has produced “smart bombs” and cruise missiles that have a degree of accuracy which should instill fear upon any warring entity.  Addition of nuclear capability adds nothing.  Furthermore, our stealth bombers and fighters, our advanced avionics and battlefield weapons keeps us as the most formidable force upon the Earth.  Our strength lies in our ability to further such technology and not in how many people or building we can annihilate with a single blow.

Wars are inevitable and the continued strength of our military forces is of paramount concern.  But that strength cannot come with a threat to the continuation of all humanity.  No nation, no people, no group, can ever justify its actions when it puts in balance the survival of the human race.

A wise man once told me that I do not have to take on every fight I am invited to.  Oft times the more intelligent thing to do is nothing.  America stands for freedom and liberty but we do better by simply carrying the message to the world than trying to bludgeon it into our belief system.  But when challenged in terms that allow us no other avenue, we are still stronger than any other nation on earth even before any consideration is given to our nuclear arms.  Therefore, how much do we really need them, and how many?