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manhefnawi

Spain - The French invasion and the War of Independence, 1808-14 | Britannica.com - 0 views

www.britannica.com/...he-War-of-Independence-1808-14

Ferdinand VII of Spain

shared by manhefnawi on 03 Jun 18 - No Cached
  • Joseph could count on the support of cautious, legalistic administrators and soldiers, those who believed resistance to French power impossible,
  • After the deposition of King Ferdinand, “patriot” Spain outside the control of the French armies split into a number of autonomous provinces. Resistance centred in provincial committees (juntas) that organized armies.
  • Napoleon then invaded Spain and by 1809 was in control of most of the peninsula. The Spanish regular army, led by incompetent generals, suffered defeat after defeat.
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  • The Central Junta and its successor, the regency, were compelled to summon a Cortes in order to legitimize the situation created by the absence of Ferdinand VII, who was a prisoner in France. Conservatives conceived of this task as the mere supply of the sinews of war on behalf of an absent king.
  • With the help of an army corps and of conservative sentiment that had been outraged by the liberalism of 1812, Ferdinand returned from exile in France to rule Spain as an absolute monarch. In 1820 he was forced by military sedition to return to constitutionalism during the Liberal Triennium (1820–23). For the last, “ominous” decade of his reign, he returned to a relatively enlightened form of ministerial despotism. From 1814 to 1820 Spain attempted to reestablish its rule in America and to maintain an inflated wartime army with a permanent economic deficit.
  • When, on September 29, 1833, Ferdinand died, Isabella was proclaimed queen, with María Cristina as regent, precipitating almost immediately the outbreak of the First Carlist War (1833–39).
aidenborst

US troops accidentally storm olive oil factory in Bulgaria - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics US history crisis Culture GOP Soldiers Army Bulgaria Factory

shared by aidenborst on 02 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • The US military has issued an apology after soldiers accidentally stormed a factory in Bulgaria that produces processing machinery for olive oil during a training exercise last month.
  • "The U.S. Army takes training seriously and prioritizes the safety of our soldiers, our allies, and civilians. We sincerely apologize to the business and its employees," the US military said in the statement. "We always learn from these exercises and are fully investigating the cause of this mistake. We will implement rigorous procedures to clearly define our training areas and prevent this type of incident in the future."
  • "they believed was part of the training area, but that was occupied by Bulgarian civilians operating a private business." No weapons were fired, the US military also said.
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  • US soldiers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade had been practicing for days how to seize and secure the Cheshnegirovo decommissioned airfield in Bulgaria, training that included clearing bunkers across the airfield, according to a statement from the US Army Europe and Africa released Tuesday.
  • CNN has reached out to the factory owner, US embassy in Bulgaria, Bulgaria's Interior Ministry and Defense Ministry for comment.Read MoreBulgarian President Rumen Radev condemned the incident and said he expects there will be an investigation, CNN affiliate Nova TV reported Monday.
  • "It is inadmissible to have the lives of Bulgarian citizens disturbed and put at risk by military formations, whether Bulgarian or belonging to a foreign army," Radev said. "The exercises with our allies on the territory of Bulgaria should contribute to building security and trust in collective defense, not breed tension."
aidenborst

US Army will not investigate Flynn's comments about a coup after he appeared to endorse... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

US politics Culture policy Army Coup Michael-Flynn

shared by aidenborst on 02 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • The US Army said Wednesday that it will not investigate former Gen. Michael Flynn for statements he recently made in which he appeared to endorse a Myanmar-style coup occurring in the US.
  • "We are aware of the statements LTG (R) Flynn made May 30 and June 1. The Army is not investigating these statements further at this time," an Army spokesperson said in a statement.
  • Flynn is facing bipartisan criticism after appearing to endorse a Myanmar-style coup in the US during an event in Dallas on Sunday in which an audience member raised the idea.
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  • "Let me be VERY CLEAR - There is NO reason whatsoever for any coup in America, and I do not and have not at any time called for any action of that sort," the message said.
  • "I want to know why what happened in Minamar (sic)can't happen here?" the audience member, who identified himself as a Marine, asked Flynn.
  • "No reason, I mean, it should happen here. No reason. That's right," Flynn responded.
  • Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday that "the department is not going to have an official comment one way on this."
  • "Flynn's remarks border on sedition. There's certainly conduct unbecoming an officer. Those are both things that can be tried under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and I think that as a retiree of the military, it should certainly be a path that we consider to have consequences for these types of words," Luria, a retired Navy commander, told CNN's Anderson Cooper on "AC360."
Javier E

Modern War for Romantics: Ferdinand Foch and the Principles of War - War on the Rocks - 0 views

warontherocks.com/...foch-and-the-principles-of-war

modern war principles strategy big picture

shared by Javier E on 08 Mar 22 - No Cached
  • Second, the disastrous losses that Americans too often associate with the French military and that encourage them to dismiss the French should do the opposite; the failures make the French worth reading.
  • The first is that the French military has an intellectual tradition that stretches back at least to the 18th century
  • Their work is sophisticated, and they write well
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  • Third, relatedly, the French view everything from the perspective of scarcity, meaning they assume they have to compensate for a lack of resources with smarts and courage, and by making the most of what they have.
  • It is true that at the heart of Foch’s thinking about war is a Romantic interpretation of “modern” warfare that owes a lot to Clausewitz as well as ambient French Romanticism, which encouraged rejection of materialist or positivist philosophies and valorized spirit and will.
  • Wars for Foch were contests between wills; the most obstinate wins. But they were also fundamentally about aggression. If you want to push your enemy back, “hit him, otherwise nothing is done, and to that end there is only one means: battle.”
  • Foch believed that strategy boiled down to maneuver. But the maneuvering had to be for the sake of setting up the decisive attack.
  • Napoleon maneuvered to kill. Foch believed he could teach the art of maneuvering to kill by studying not formulae for victory but rather fundamental “principles of war” that he believed should guide commanders’ analysis of how to proceed.
  • Foch’s catchphrase was said to have been “De quoi s’agit-il?” meaning “What’s it all about?” The idea is to think and adapt rather than do anything mechanically, an imperative that gave commanders full license, for example, to abandon the disastrous tactics of 1914 and try something else.
  • What he actually wrote is this: economy of force, intellectual discipline, liberty of action, security, strategic surprise, and the decisive attack.
  • what most French officers would say if quizzed about Foch: economy of force, concentration of efforts, and liberty of action.
  • “one does not hunt two hares at the same time.” Elaborating on the idea, he defined economy of force as the “art of [dispersing one’s efforts] [ in a profitable manner, of getting the greatest possible benefit out of the resources one has.”
  • Foch argued for what later would be referred to by Americans as mission command, and, in the French army, the principle of “subsidiarity,” which boils down to the idea that an officer should communicate his general intent to his subordinate officers, but leave to them the authority and autonomy to figure out the best way to fulfill it.
  • Intellectual Discipline and Liberty of Action
  • Just as when one walks through a dark house one extends one’s arm in front to guard against walking into obstacles, Foch wrote, an army must deploy a force ahead as well as to the sides and rear. The objective is to protect the major portion of the force, the gros, from being forced to react and thereby losing its liberty of action
  • Security
  • Though Foch spoke of the need for decisive battles with language that evoked the physical destruction of the adversary’s armies, he was really interested in imposing upon the enemy a psychological effect that was analogous to the effect ideally brought about by a surprise: namely, a combination of terror and paralysis.
  • Strategic Surprise and Decisive Attack
  • the French army today recognizes five principles of war. The first three are straight Foch: liberty of action, economy of means, and concentration of efforts. To these the French have added two more, reportedly derived from the 1992 book on strategy by Adm. Guy Labouérie (1933–2016). These are “uncertainty” and foudroyance.
  • Uncertainty quite simply is something one most go to great lengths to cultivate among one’s adversaries: uncertainty about what one is doing and going to do, where, when, and why
  • Foudroyance, derived from the word for thunder (foudre), means a sudden crippling shock. In truth, it amounts to a rephrasing of Foch’s principle of strategic surprise
  • At the 2019 “Principles of War in 2035” conference, participants discussed whether or not new technologies, new forms of conflict, and new contextual realities (such as new political landscapes, the role of the media, and the much smaller size of most militaries) had changed or would in the foreseeable future change warfare so significantly as to make Foch finally useless. In essence, the answer was no,
  • Foch’s principles also make particular sense given the French army’s lack of resources, compared not just to the U.S. military but even the French army of Foch’s day. Economy of means when means are limited is not a thought exercise
  • Foch above all counseled fighting smart, and trying always to answer “de quoi s’agit-il?” even if this amounts to nothing more than the imperative to take a moment and think through what one is trying to achieve. This seems self-evident, but recent American military history suggests civilian and military leaders could benefit from the reminder.
rachelramirez

'Islamic State' Turning Into a Guerrilla Army, Top General Warns - The Daily Beast - 0 views

www.thedailybeast.com/...la-army-top-general-warns.html

ISIS army politics US crisis policy

shared by rachelramirez on 27 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • ‘Islamic State’ Turning Into a Guerrilla Army, Top General Warns
  • The capital of the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Iraq is now under assault. But ISIS isn’t going anywhere. Instead, the terror group is beginning to rebrand itself from a “caliphate” to an insurgency
  • It could well mean that there will be no “lasting defeat” of ISIS, even if it loses control of Iraq’s second-largest city, despite Secretary of Defense Ash Carter’s claim of such a victory just four days ago
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  • Fighting that insurgency cost as much as $2 trillion, according to one estimate, and the lives of nearly 5,000 American troops
  • And it likely would fall to nascent Iraqi fighters, who just two years ago ditched their weapons and uniforms in Mosul, to repel ISIS and launch a counterinsurgency.
  • Volesky warned that such attacks in liberated areas are one reason the U.S. is advising the Iraqi and Kurdish forces charged with liberating Mosul to move deliberately. Fas
  • But there are alternatives. Al Qaeda, for example, has embraced local Sunnis, not terrorized them, allowing the group to return to areas and recruit members.
  • Iraqi and Kurdish forces are now as far as 20 miles outside Mosul’s city center. The U.S. military has said the operation could last anywhere from weeks to months.
  • After its defeat, ISIS said the promised apocalyptic battle would come at a later, unspecified date.
  • A series of attacks last week killed at least 55 people in Baghdad. And in July, at least 324 people died when a truck bomb struck a popular shopping area in central Baghdad, the deadliest attack since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003.
  • But after two years of brutal reign, ISIS may not be able to attract Sunnis to its insurgency. Not after the terror group that robbed their cities, beheaded their citizens, and made crimes of smoking, shaving, and playing music.
  • But that timetable could shift. In the last week, ISIS has lost a number of key cities in a matter of days. And in those battles, the group appears to be on the defensive before abandoning territory altogether. Most notably, ISIS lost the Syrian city of
  • And it is possible that ISIS, in taking credit for bombings, is exploiting the frustration of other groups seeking to upend the current Iraqi government.
  • Or just as likely, the U.S. military is wrong. After all, last year, U.S. commanders forecasted an ISIS expansion in Libya, which instead flailed
Javier E

Pentagon Plans to Shrink Army to Pre-World War II Level - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...to-pre-world-war-ii-level.html

defense pentagon budget army

shared by Javier E on 24 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel plans to shrink the United States Army to its smallest force since before the World War II buildup and eliminate an entire class of Air Force attack jets
  • A result, the officials argue, will be a military capable of defeating any adversary, but too small for protracted foreign occupations.
  • The new American way of war will be underscored in Mr. Hagel’s budget, which protects money for Special Operations forces and cyberwarfare. And in an indication of the priority given to overseas military presence that does not require a land force, the proposal will — at least for one year — maintain the current number of aircraft carriers at 11.
Javier E

'The Blood Telegram,' by Gary J. Bass - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...d-telegram-by-gary-j-bass.html

india pakistan bangladesh foreign policy Cold War kissinger

shared by Javier E on 29 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Things came to a head in December 1970, when Sheik Mujib-ur-­Rahman, a pipe-smoking Bengali leader, and his party, the Awami League, won the elections on the promise of autonomy for East Pakistan.
  • Gen. Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, egged on by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the second-place finisher, arrested Rahman and ordered the army to crush the Bengalis. Dominated by Punjabis, the army moved brutally, shooting and detaining Bengali leaders, intellectuals and anyone who opposed them.
  • Yahya, its military leader, became Nixon’s secret liaison with the Chinese leader Zhou Enlai. Yahya helped lay the groundwork for the visits to China by Kissinger and then Nixon. It’s hard to overstate just how earth-changing Nixon and Kissinger regarded their trips to China — and how important they thought they were for bringing them about.
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  • Bass has unearthed a series of conversations, most of them from the White House’s secret tapes, that reveal Nixon and Kissinger as breathtakingly vulgar and hateful, especially in their attitudes toward the Indians, whom they regarded as repulsive, shifty and, anyway, pro-Soviet — and especially in their opinion of Indira Gandhi. “The old bitch,” Nixon called her. “I don’t know why the hell anybody would reproduce in that damn country but they do,” he said.
  • this meant that Yahya — a vain, shallow mediocrity — was suddenly considered indispensable, free to do whatever he wished in East Pakistan. With the White House averting its eyes, the largely Muslim Pakistani Army killed at least 300,000 Bengalis, most of them Hindus, and forced 10 million to flee to India
  • The men in the White House, however, not only refused to condemn Yahya — in public or private — but they also declined to withhold American arms, ammunition and spare parts that kept Pakistan’s military machine humming. Indeed, Nixon regarded the dictator with genuine affection. “I understand the anguish you must have felt in making the difficult decisions you have faced,” he told Yahya.
  • what is most telling is what they reveal about Nixon’s and Kissinger’s strategic intelligence. At every step of the crisis, the two men appear to have been driven as much by their loathing of India — West Pakistan’s rival — as by any cool calculations of power
  • By failing to restrain West Pakistan, they allowed a blood bath to unfold, and then a regional war, which began when Gandhi finally decided that the only way to stop the tide of refugees was to stop the killing across the border. That, in turn, prompted West Pakistan to attack India.
  • the recklessness of Nixon and Kissinger only got worse. They dispatched ships from the Seventh Fleet into the Bay of Bengal, and even encouraged China to move troops to the Indian border, possibly for an attack — a maneuver that could have provoked the Soviet Union. Fortunately, the leaders of the two Communist countries proved more sober than those in the White House. The war ended quickly, when India crushed the Pakistani Army and East Pakistan declared independence.
sarahbalick

North Korea 'executes' army chief of staff Ri Yong-gil - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-asia-35543364

north korea army chief staff

shared by sarahbalick on 11 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • North Korea 'executes' army chief of staff Ri Yong-gil
  • North Korea has executed its army chief of staff Ri Yong-gil, according to unconfirmed South Korean media reports.
  • However, Gen Ri would be the latest of several high-ranking officials to be purged under leader Kim Jong-un.
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  • "factional conspiracy".
  • While no individuals were mentioned, state news agency KCNA reported at the time that those at the meeting criticised "the practices of seeking privileges, misuse of authority... and bureaucratism manifested in the party".
  • umours that Gen Ri had fallen from favour first surfaced late last year.
  • "when previous chiefs of staff have been removed, they have re-appeared in other positions or been demoted. The only exception was Gen Ri Yong-ho who was removed in 2012 and then put under house arrest,"
  • "That being said, much of the information that South Korean intelligence sources have been giving to the media in the past year or so has turned out to be true,
katyshannon

Bowe Bergdahl to Face Court-Martial on Desertion Charges - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...tial-on-desertion-charges.html

bowe bergdahl desertion charges new york times US

shared by katyshannon on 15 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • A top Army commander on Monday ordered that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl face a court-martial on charges of desertion and endangering troops stemming from his decision to leave his outpost in 2009, a move that prompted a huge manhunt in the wilds of eastern Afghanistan and landed him in nearly five years of harsh Taliban captivity.
  • According to Sergeant Bergdahl’s defense lawyers, the Army lawyer who presided over the preliminary hearing also recommended that he face neither jail time nor a punitive discharge and that he go before an intermediate tribunal known as a “special court-martial,” where the most severe penalty possible would be a year of confinement.
  • Monday’s decision rejecting that recommendation means that Sergeant Bergdahl now faces a maximum five-year penalty if ultimately convicted by a military jury of desertion, as well as potential life imprisonment on the more serious charge of misbehavior before the enemy, which in this case means endangering the troops who were sent to search for him after he disappeared.
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  • Sergeant Bergdahl has been the focus of attacks by Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign
  • Donald J. Trump, for one, has called the sergeant a “traitor” who should be executed, while Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has vowed to hold hearings if the sergeant is not punished.
  • No date has been set for Sergeant Bergdahl’s next court hearing, which will be held at Fort Bragg, the Army said. He is currently assigned to the Army’s Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, the site of his preliminary hearing in September.
  • In the interviews, he told the same story that he had described to the Army’s investigating officer, Lt. Gen. Kenneth Dahl, about why he left the outpost: He wanted to cause a crisis by hiking to another base 18 miles away that would allow him to have an audience with a senior Army commander where he could outline what he felt were serious leadership problems endangering his unit.
  • In the interviews, which were recorded by Mark Boal, the screenwriter and producer, Sergeant Bergdahl said that he realized within 20 minutes of leaving that he had done “something serious.”
  • General Abrams’s decision came just days after Sergeant Bergdahl was heard for the first time publicly explaining why he left his base, in taped interviews that were broadcast by the podcast “Serial” last week.
  • Sergeant Bergdahl told Mr. Boal that during his hike he had also decided to surveil Taliban fighters emplacing improvised explosive devices that could be used to kill American soldiers, and to turn that information over to commanders when he arrived at the other base. He said that he “was trying to prove to the world” that he was a top soldier, and that in some sense he even wanted to emulate someone like Jason Bourne, the spy-movie character.
  • Republicans have asserted that the swap would embolden the Taliban to kidnap other Americans and that it was done without the required notification of Congress. Some Republicans and members of Sergeant Bergdahl’s unit have also asserted that a half-dozen or more American troops died searching for him.
  • But in his testimony, General Dahl — who was recently promoted from major general to lieutenant general — said that no troops had died specifically searching for Sergeant Bergdahl and that no evidence was found to support claims that he intended to walk to China or India or that he was a Taliban sympathizer.
Megan Flanagan

War on ISIS: Why Arab states aren't doing more - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by Megan Flanagan on 10 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • sending Special Forces. British jets have joined French warplanes over the skies of Syria. Even Germany, whose post-World War II constitution puts restrictions on fighting battles on foreign soil, is becoming increasingly involved.
  • Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are down to about one mission against ISIS targets each month, a U.S. official told CNN on Monday. Bahrain stopped in the autumn, the official says, and Jordan stopped in August.
  • Yemen -- not ISIS -- is the priority for most Arab countries
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  • Yemen is at the center of a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the region's biggest powers.
  • Iran is majority Shia Muslim and non-Arab. Most of the other countries in the region -- including, and led by, Saudi Arabia -- are majority Sunni Arab, and are suspicious of Iran's motives.
  • ou're talking about a major 24/7 war. The Saudis and the Emiratis -- the two countries with the most capacity in terms of air power -- are flying fighter jets over the skies of Yemen,
  • "The Arab states, including Jordan -- after the incident with the pilot [burned to death by ISIS when his plane crashed in Syria] -- are laying low,"
  • "ISIS doesn't just exist in Syria and Iraq -- it has major constituency supporters in almost all Arab countries, including Saudi, Kuwait, Lebanon and Jordan.
  • They're not just fighters, they play leadership roles -- and ISIS has carried out major attacks in Saudi, both against Shiite mosques and against (other) Saudi targets.
  • They say Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies are also less inclined to carry out strikes against ISIS targets if doing so helps Iran's allies in Damascus and Baghdad.
  • "It is important for any intervening army to have the backing of the central government, or at least the army in the country," Sary says, "(including) the army of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who everyone will see as impossible to work with."
  • Even Germany, whose post-World War II constitution puts restrictions on fighting battles on foreign soil, is becoming increasingly involved.
  • appears that the involvement of the U.S.-led coalition's Arab members -- all of them much closer geographically to the terror group than their Western partners -- is drawing down.
  • Analysts say Yemen is at the center of a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the region's biggest powers.
  • Religion and ethnicity are at the heart of the longstanding hostility
  • The critical shift was the coalition in Yemen,
  • ISIS doesn't just exist in Syria and Iraq -- it has major constituency supporters in almost all Arab countries, including Saudi, Kuwait, Lebanon and Jordan
  • Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies are also less inclined to carry out strikes against ISIS targets if doing so helps Iran's allies in Damascus and Baghda
  • There's been the idea that ISIS is a bigger challenge for Iran and its allies than it is for the Arab states, even though this feeling is changing now."
  • no individual country is likely to risk it, and no nation has a mandate to act on behalf of everyone else.
  • the over-involvement by the army in the internal affairs of the state has become acceptable, but when it comes to foreign intervention, it becomes problematic
aqconces

British Army Enlisted Indian Children as Young as 10 in World War 1, Claims Book - 0 views

www.ndtv.com/...uring-world-war-1-book-1236217

british army indian children

shared by aqconces on 26 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Britain's World War I Army included Indian children as young as 10-years-old fighting against the Germans on the western front
  • One of the youngest boys involved in direct combat was a "brave little Gurkha" called Pim, 16, who was given an award for valour by Queen Mary while he was recuperating in hospital in Brighton
  • "In the case of a 10-year-old, it should have been pretty obvious that they were underage,"
bluekoenig

The execution of Pvt. Slovik - HISTORY - 0 views

www.history.com/...the-execution-of-pvt-slovik

execution history politics US

shared by bluekoenig on 30 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • bluekoenig on 30 Jan 20
     
    On this day in 1945, Pvt. Eddie Slovik was executed for desertion of the US army, he was the first to be tried and executed since the Civil War and he was the only American soldier executed for desertion. He was drafted into the army and submitted a confession of desertion after getting lost with a companion on his way to the front lines. He was encouraged to repeal it multiple times but refused, hoping it would get him out of combat and put in military prison, before he was tried and sentenced to execution. He appealed to officers as high as Truman but never recieved a pardon and was executed in France.
anonymous

About 20,000 National Guard Members To Deploy For Inauguration, Officials Say : Insurre... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...inauguration-d-c-official-says

shared by anonymous on 14 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Local and federal security officials expect about 20,000 National Guard members to be involved in securing Washington, D.C., for President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration next week.
  • "I think you can expect to see somewhere upwards of beyond 20,000 members of the National Guard that will be here in the footprint of the District of Columbia,"
  • It represents an uptick in National Guard troops that will be deployed to the area. Army Times reported earlier this week that the Pentagon had authorized 15,000 National Guard members to be sent to the District for the inauguration.
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  • The troops will be coming from nearly all states, Bowman reported, adding that only those who are either military police or have law enforcement experience will be armed.
  • The exact number to be deployed is still being worked out by the Secret Service, the lead agency on inauguration security, and others,
  • Contee said the inauguration has been designated as a "national special security event," adding the final numbers of troops would come from the Secret Service and leaving open the possibility the numbers could fluctuate.
  • Others will have access to their weapons but not carry them, and it remains unclear where the troops will deploy at the U.S. Capitol, according to the U.S. official.
  • President Trump issued a statement Wednesday urging supporters to commit "NO violence," citing unspecified reports on future demonstrations.
  • Presidential inaugurations are always massive security operations, but Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20 is facing heightened security concerns following last week's breach of the U.S. Capitol that left five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer.
  • These security moves come as the House of Representatives voted Wednesday to impeach President Trump a second time.
  • It was a startling reminder that just a week ago rioters attacked the building, overrunning Capitol Police in an attempt to block lawmakers from confirming Biden's Electoral College victory.
  • Since the siege, some members of Congress, including Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran, have requested that Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy review backgrounds of any National Guard troops involved in inaugural security.
Javier E

Will the U.S. Pass a Point of No Return? - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...619739

history trump rome caesar rubicon democracy coup crisis politics US

shared by Javier E on 16 Aug 21 - No Cached
  • the most sustained line of response has been from my friend Eric Schnurer, a writer and long-time advisor to state and local governments.
  • In his first installment, in the fall of 2019, Schnurer emphasized the parts of the America-and-Rome comparison he thought were most significant—and worrisome. Then last summer, during the election campaign and the pandemic lockdown, he extended the comparison in an even-less-cheering way. In a third and more cautionary extension of his argument this summer, he concentrated on the U.S. Senate.
  • Now, chapter four:
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  • crossing the Rubicon. Schnurer argues that this is more than just a familiar phrase. And he says that a U.S. Rubicon moment is in view—which would be triggered by a possible indictment of Donald Trump.
  • Crossing the Rubicon: If the United States, in recent years, has been tracking the decline and fall of Republican Rome, when do we pass the point of no return? By Eric B. Schnurer
  • How did a wealthy, powerful, and successfully self-governing people—proud of their frontier origins, piety and traditional values, and above all their origin story in throwing off monarchical rule—essentially commit democratic suicide and settle, more-or-less willingly, for a half-millennium of dictatorship?
  • From rising economic inequality, political violence, and governmental dysfunction on through the generally lackadaisical reaction of the Senate to a losing chief-executive candidate’s conspiracy to murder many of them, overthrow the government, and thereby block certifying his defeat, events in ancient Rome have remarkably paralleled some you might recognize more recently
  • What might signal the end of democracy as we know it?  There is, it turns out, an easy answer at hand.
  • While there is no precise end date to the Republic, there was a bright-line occurrence generally recognized as the irreversible beginning of the end for participatory government.
  • there is indeed an event looming—probably before the end of this year— that poses almost precisely the same situation as what provoked Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon: the possible indictment of former president Donald J. Trump.
  • January 6th. It is no coincidence that insurrectionists that day carried banners urging Trump to “Cross the Rubicon” and declaring “The Die Is Cast”— Caesar’s words upon alighting on the Italian side of the river—or that they will be with him to storm the forces of the Republic and ignite a civil war over Trump’s potential indictment:
  • Avoiding criminal prosecution is precisely why Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his army and ignited a civil war 21 centuries ago.
  • Caesar’s ultimate rise had begun with the Cataline conspiracy a decade or so earlier, which, as noted, bears a familial resemblance to Trump’s attempts to overturn the recent election and, both literally and figuratively, decapitate the government.
  • Senate conservatives, known as the optimates (i.e., “the Best People”),  chose largely to shrug off both the immediate assault on the state and the long-term threat Caesar in particular posed to republicanism.  They soon lived to regret it.
  • The patricians who ruled Rome, however, had long resisted fundamental economic reforms to benefit the great mass of the population, making only such concessions as necessary when times grew tense. This simply increased the internal tensions within society as the economy globalized, making those with the means richer and richer, hollowing out the middle class, and leaving more and more Romans at the edge of desperation.
  • Will the Trumpist party similarly ultimately prevail once they cross the Rubicon? I have been predicting for years that something resembling a civil war will arise and something like Trumpists likely will carry the day in the short-term
  • three of these—Caesar, of course, plus Marcus Licinius Crassus, known as “the richest man in Rome,” and Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey the Great), the undisputedly dominant figure of the era—formed a Triumvirate and became, between them, the sole possessors of real power. The only real question was which one would prevail as the sole autocrat,
  • Caesar thus hoped to temporize, reach some sort of cohabitation arrangement with Pompey, and eventually prevail in the long term. But his enemies forced his hand with the threat of imminent criminal prosecution.
  • Caesar paused with his army on the Gaul side of the Rubicon.
  • His only path was forward. As he crossed, he uttered the famous phrase, “Alea iacta est”: “The die is cast.” The phrase has taken on the meaning of an inevitability, but Caesar meant quite the opposite: that, while he was committed and could not turn back, the outcome was far from inevitable but, rather, a tremendous gamble. At least for him.
  • By Caesar’s time, however, the populares were no longer so much true “Tribunes of the People” like the Gracchi, as ambitious patricians with an authoritarian bent who recognized anti-elite appeals to the disaffected mob as their pathway to power
  • The defenders of the Republic folded more quickly than the French Army in World War II and left Rome open to Caesar.
  • Rome was now—and ever would remain—a dictatorship.
  • When Trump’s supporters urge him to cross the Rubicon and cast the die—events that become highly likely if he, like Caesar, faces indictment—that is what they contemplate.
  • What did all this mean for Rome?  And what might it mean for us?
  • Augustus essentially achieved the settlement of unreconcilable political, social, and economic strains within Republican Rome that even his uncle Julius could not attain. The Augustinian settlement was essentially to substitute peace and prosperity for politics, and to impose the veneer of traditional piety and moral values over the reality of an increasingly heterodox and heterogenous society.
  • The Augustinian Settlement had something for everyone. Augustus, ultimately the canniest politician, was himself outwardly pious, dutiful, traditional, and respectful of republican forms—thus appealing to conservatives—while he presided over a cultural efflorescence fueled by a liberality in everything except political expression
  • The concentration of power in the Emperor allowed Rome to mobilize its economic and military resources in a way that the Republic had not, leading to five centuries of expanding geopolitical power and economic opulence the likes of which the world had never seen before.
  • Politics essentially ended for half a millennium—all government was the will of one man—and so did freedom of political speech and thought. But Romans, at least if they were lucky, were free, safe and wealthy beyond imagination in every other way. It was a trade-off they were more than happy to accept.
  • The outcome for the Republic itself, however, was indeed at that point already cast as if in iron rather than in tumbling dice. Whatever the outcome of the ensuing war, whether Caesar or Pompey prevailed as dictator, the Republic—a system of self-government in which disputes were settled by politics rather than force, where power was dispersed rather than concentrated—was dead.
  • But a reactionary philosophy that rejects fact in favor of fantasy, is economically retrograde and socially repugnant to the majority of Americans, can impose its rule for only so long.
  • Governments as we know them today will be left to fill the role solely of the traditionalist “night watchman state”—maintaining physical order and extracting a “protection” fee in return—much like the ancient Roman state. The demise of liberal democracy, the end of virtually all politics, and perhaps a little performative traditionalism and a destructive civil war, may all be coming, anyway. But, in return, Blue America, like Rome, will be able to carry on pretty much as it wishes, rising to new heights of wealth and global power.
  • Will highly-educated Americans really be willing to settle for physical security and financial success beyond anything now imaginable, in return for abandoning the American Republic for an enlightened dictatorship?
  • The Roman experience isn’t very encouraging on that score—but neither are contemporary Democrats.
  • When the crisis came, it was the optimates (i.e., “the Best People”) who were the last defenders of the Republic.
  • Why? Because the status quo worked for them, whereas the plebeians had long-since lost faith in “the system.” The supporters of the Republic were the cream of Roman society, those who, as the saying went, “had Greek” (world-class educations), married amongst themselves, and passed these advantages on to their children.
  • The republican structures they defended—elections, limited and dispersed powers, rule of law—in turn supported the rest of their existing order: an increasingly globalized economy exacerbating distributional divides but benefiting their own class.
  • The optimates were tone deaf to the needs of those struggling to make a living, while the insurrectionists played to the working class in order to destroy what passed for democracy and impose their personal rule.
  • Rich, out-of-touch, socially liberal democrats versus rich, demagogic authoritarians masquerading as the party of the working class—not far off from today. The difference is that progressives don’t recognize that they’re the new optimates.
  • Increasingly-illiberal “progressives” are slowly losing not just the white working class but also Black and Latino workers, those for whom they think they speak.
  • Meanwhile, time grows short. As aggrieved souls are forced from their dying communities and traditional social structures, into a metropolitan economy that has no place for them, the army on the Rubicon draws closer every day to the city’s walls.
Javier E

U.S. officials misled the public about the war in Afghanistan, confidential documents r... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...tan-war-confidential-documents

Afghanistan war politics history us crisis policy

shared by Javier E on 22 Oct 21 - No Cached
  • In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare. With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.
  • Since 2001, more than 775,000 U.S. troops have deployed to Afghanistan, many repeatedly. Of those, 2,300 died there and 20,589 were wounded in action, according to Defense Department figures.
  • They underscore how three presidents — George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump — and their military commanders have been unable to deliver on their promises to prevail in Afghanistan.
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  • With most speaking on the assumption that their remarks would not become public, U.S. officials acknowledged that their warfighting strategies were fatally flawed and that Washington wasted enormous sums of money trying to remake Afghanistan into a modern nation.
  • The interviews also highlight the U.S. government’s botched attempts to curtail runaway corruption, build a competent Afghan army and police force, and put a dent in Afghanistan’s thriving opium trade.
  • Since 2001, the Defense Department, State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development have spent or appropriated between $934 billion and $978 billion
  • Those figures do not include money spent by other agencies such as the CIA and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is responsible for medical care for wounded veterans.
  • Several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public. They said it was common at military headquarters in Kabul — and at the White House — to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.
  • SIGAR departed from its usual mission of performing audits and launched a side venture. Titled “Lessons Learned,” the $11 million project was meant to diagnose policy failures in Afghanistan so the United States would not repeat the mistakes the next time it invaded a country or tried to rebuild a shattered one.
  • the reports, written in dense bureaucratic prose and focused on an alphabet soup of government initiatives, left out the harshest and most frank criticisms from the interviews.
  • “We found the stabilization strategy and the programs used to achieve it were not properly tailored to the Afghan context, and successes in stabilizing Afghan districts rarely lasted longer than the physical presence of coalition troops and civilians,” read the introduction to one report released in May 2018.
  • To augment the Lessons Learned interviews, The Post obtained hundreds of pages of previously classified memos about the Afghan war that were dictated by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld between 2001 and 2006.
  • Together, the SIGAR interviews and the Rumsfeld memos pertaining to Afghanistan constitute a secret history of the war and an unsparing appraisal of 18 years of conflict.
  • With their forthright descriptions of how the United States became stuck in a faraway war, as well as the government's determination to conceal them from the public, the Lessons Learned interviews broadly resemble the Pentagon Papers, the Defense Department's top-secret history of the Vietnam War.
  • running throughout are torrents of criticism that refute the official narrative of the war, from its earliest days through the start of the Trump administration.
  • At the outset, for instance, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan had a clear, stated objective — to retaliate against al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
  • Yet the interviews show that as the war dragged on, the goals and mission kept changing and a lack of faith in the U.S. strategy took root inside the Pentagon, the White House and the State Department.
  • Fundamental disagreements went unresolved. Some U.S. officials wanted to use the war to turn Afghanistan into a democracy. Others wanted to transform Afghan culture and elevate women’s rights. Still others wanted to reshape the regional balance of power among Pakistan, India, Iran and Russia.
  • The Lessons Learned interviews also reveal how U.S. military commanders struggled to articulate who they were fighting, let alone why.
  • Was al-Qaeda the enemy, or the Taliban? Was Pakistan a friend or an adversary? What about the Islamic State and the bewildering array of foreign jihadists, let alone the warlords on the CIA’s payroll? According to the documents, the U.S. government never settled on an answer.
  • As a result, in the field, U.S. troops often couldn’t tell friend from foe.
  • The United States has allocated more than $133 billion to build up Afghanistan — more than it spent, adjusted for inflation, to revive the whole of Western Europe with the Marshall Plan after World War II.
  • As commanders in chief, Bush, Obama and Trump all promised the public the same thing. They would avoid falling into the trap of "nation-building" in Afghanistan.
  • U.S. officials tried to create — from scratch — a democratic government in Kabul modeled after their own in Washington. It was a foreign concept to the Afghans, who were accustomed to tribalism, monarchism, communism and Islamic law.
  • During the peak of the fighting, from 2009 to 2012, U.S. lawmakers and military commanders believed the more they spent on schools, bridges, canals and other civil-works projects, the faster security would improve. Aid workers told government interviewers it was a colossal misjudgment, akin to pumping kerosene on a dying campfire just to keep the flame alive.
  • One unnamed executive with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) guessed that 90 percent of what they spent was overkill: “We lost objectivity. We were given money, told to spend it and we did, without reason.”Lessons Learned interview | 10/7/2016Tap to view full document
  • The gusher of aid that Washington spent on Afghanistan also gave rise to historic levels of corruption.
  • In public, U.S. officials insisted they had no tolerance for graft. But in the Lessons Learned interviews, they admitted the U.S. government looked the other way while Afghan power brokers — allies of Washington — plundered with impunity.
  • Christopher Kolenda, an Army colonel who deployed to Afghanistan several times and advised three U.S. generals in charge of the war, said that the Afghan government led by President Hamid Karzai had “self-organized into a kleptocracy”Christopher Kolenda | Lessons Learned interview | 4/5/2016Tap to view full document by 2006 — and that U.S. officials failed to recognize the lethal threat it posed to their strategy.
  • By allowing corruption to fester, U.S. officials told interviewers, they helped destroy the popular legitimacy of the wobbly Afghan government they were fighting to prop up. With judges and police chiefs and bureaucrats extorting bribes, many Afghans soured on democracy and turned to the Taliban to enforce order.
  • None expressed confidence that the Afghan army and police could ever fend off, much less defeat, the Taliban on their own. More than 60,000 members of Afghan security forces have been killed, a casualty rate that U.S. commanders have called unsustainable.
  • In the Lessons Learned interviews, however, U.S. military trainers described the Afghan security forces as incompetent, unmotivated and rife with deserters. They also accused Afghan commanders of pocketing salaries — paid by U.S. taxpayers — for tens of thousands of “ghost soldiers.”
  • an army and national police force that can defend the country without foreign help.
  • Year after year, U.S. generals have said in public they are making steady progress on the central plank of their strategy: to train a robust Afgh
  • From the beginning, Washington never really figured out how to incorporate a war on drugs into its war against al-Qaeda. By 2006, U.S. officials feared that narco-traffickers had become stronger than the Afghan government and that money from the drug trade was powering the insurgency
  • throughout the Afghan war, documents show that U.S. military officials have resorted to an old tactic from Vietnam — manipulating public opinion. In news conferences and other public appearances, those in charge of the war have followed the same talking points for 18 years. No matter how the war is going — and especially when it is going badly — they emphasize how they are making progress.
  • Two months later, Marin Strmecki, a civilian adviser to Rumsfeld, gave the Pentagon chief a classified, 40-page report loaded with more bad news. It said “enormous popular discontent is building” against the Afghan government because of its corruption and incompetence. It also said that the Taliban was growing stronger, thanks to support from Pakistan, a U.S. ally.
  • Since then, U.S. generals have almost always preached that the war is progressing well, no matter the reality on the battlefield.
  • he Lessons Learned interviews contain numerous admissions that the government routinely touted statistics that officials knew were distorted, spurious or downright false
  • A person identified only as a senior National Security Council official said there was constant pressure from the Obama White House and Pentagon to produce figures to show the troop surge of 2009 to 2011 was working, despite hard evidence to the contrary.
  • Even when casualty counts and other figures looked bad, the senior NSC official said, the White House and Pentagon would spin them to the point of absurdity. Suicide bombings in Kabul were portrayed as a sign of the Taliban’s desperation, that the insurgents were too weak to engage in direct combat. Meanwhile, a rise in U.S. troop deaths was cited as proof that American forces were taking the fight to the enemy.
  • “And this went on and on for two reasons,” the senior NSC official said, “to make everyone involved look good, and to make it look like the troops and resources were having the kind of effect where removing them would cause the country to deteriorate.”
lindsayweber1

Iraqi army aims to reach site of Islamic State executions south of Mosul | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...risis-iraq-mosul-idUSKCN12R1E0

mosul iraq isis

shared by lindsayweber1 on 28 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • The Iraqi army was trying on Thursday to reach a town south of Mosul where Islamic State has reportedly executed dozens to deter the population against any attempt to support the U.S.-led offensive on the jihadists' last major city stronghold in Iraq.
  • slamic State fighters are keeping up their fierce defense of the southern approaches to Mosul, which has held up Iraqi troops there and forced an elite army unit east of the city to put a more rapid advance on hold.
  • The fall of Mosul would mark Islamic State's effective defeat in Iraq.
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  • The city is many times bigger than any other that the ultra-hardline militant group has ever captured, and it was from its Grand Mosque in 2014 that the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a "caliphate" that also spans parts of Syria.
davisem

Russia Says Aleppo Combat Has Ceased; Residents Disagree - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ebels-russia-lavrov-assad.html

shared by davisem on 09 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • Russian officials said Thursday that the Syrian Army had stopped combat operations in the divided city of Aleppo in order to evacuate civilians, but residents of the rebel-held enclave reported that after a day of intense bombardment, fighting was continuing
  • 150 airstrikes had killed at least 50 people and in which residents said they were unable to flee because of the intense combat
  • At the United Nations, the agency’s envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, told reporters he could not verify whether the fighting had stopped or whether civilians were being allowed to evacuate
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Pleas for help from eastern Aleppo escalated on Thursday, with doctors warning that they could no longer provide more than first aid
  • Mr. Assad told Al Watan, a pro-government newspaper, that victory in Aleppo “doesn’t mean the end of the war in Syria. It is a significant landmark toward the end of the battle, but the war in Syria will not end until terrorism is eliminated,” he said, referring to insurgents
  • Bombs containing chlorine, banned as a weapon by international law, fell on the front line near the Kalasseh neighborhood, sickening about 30 people, the White Helmets said.
  • and that now the United States and Russia, as well as the Syrian combatants, could not agree on a plan to deliver aid and evacuate civilians who want to leave
  • Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued an angry and sarcastic response to a statement from six Western countries a day earlier that had warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo. The ministry said that Russia was providing aid to residents it said had
  • Led by Canada, the United Nations General Assembly is scheduled to vote on a draft resolution that calls for a “cessation of hostilities” for an undefined period of time and that allows humanitarian aid to be delivered. It would have no force of law.
  • davisem on 09 Dec 16
     
    Syrian Army stopped combat in the city Aleppo because they wanted to evacuate the citizens, but after they were bombarded, there was still fighting. It is so bad that for doctors, it hard to provide financial aid.
maddieireland334

Thailand's thoughtcrime arrests are getting dangerously bizarre - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...85163714

Thailand Arrests Crime Rights

shared by maddieireland334 on 31 May 16 - No Cached
  • Thailand is now entering its third year under military dictatorship, a reign established when generals seized power from an elected government on May 22, 2014.
  • The army has vowed to use its sweeping powers to heal a nation torn by class resentment.
  • When the army seized power two years ago, it justified its takeover by promising a wave of grand reforms. Thailand, the generals said, would become a nation purged of corruption and of the recurring, sometimes bloody street protests that have convulsed the political order for nearly a decade
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  • Indeed, Thailand has endured 13 successful coups since 1932, the last year in which the nation (then called Siam) was directly ruled by monarchs.
  • This can involve several days of interrogation and re-education at an army camp. Failure to attend is a crime. “The United States has the Patriot Act to deal with the situation after 9/11,” Gen. Werachon said. “This is the same.”
  • Even less fortunate are those accused of Thailand’s most serious speech-related crime: disrespecting the royal family
  • But disrespect toward the king, who is now 88 and in ailing health, is hardly common. He is widely revered and his image is ubiquitous — on banknotes, gilded street portraits and glowing portrayals on television.
  • Though corruption persists and the economy is struggling, few are eager to risk confronting a military with near-absolute power.
  • A poll released six months ago by Thailand’s statistics office, which is beholden to the military government, dubiously suggests that 99% of Thais are happy under the junta.
  • “They made it clear from day one that they would not tolerate even the slightest dissent,” Sunai said. “Now these measures send a very clear signal that Thailand is falling deeper and deeper into military dictatorship.”
  • The public will vote on the junta’s favored constitution in August. But ahead of the referendum, debate is stifled. The penalty for those found guilty of “influencing a voter”? Up to 10 years in prison.
cjlee29

Russia Says Talks Are Underway to Extend Syrian Lull in Fighting to Aleppo - The New Yo... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ters-mideast-crisis-syria.html

shared by cjlee29 on 02 May 16 - No Cached
  • ussia said on Sunday talks were taking place to include Aleppo in a temporary lull in fighting declared by the Syrian army in some western parts of the country, a sign of intensified efforts to halt a surge of violence in Syria's former commercial capital.
  • Rebels shelled government-held areas on Sunday, killing several people, and government warplanes carried out more than a dozen air strikes later in the day
  • yria's army announced late on Friday a "regime of calm", or lull in fighting, which applied to Damascus and some of its outskirts, and parts of northwestern coastal province Latakia. But it excluded Aleppo.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • A senior defence ministry official in Moscow, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said on Sunday negotiations were taking place to "establish a regime of calm also in Aleppo province", Interfax news agency reported.
  • Syria's army confirmed the extension of the lull around Damascus but did not mention Aleppo.
  • "We will not accept under any circumstances... regional ceasefires,
  • These are critical hours," Kerry said,
  • Both sides have rained bombardments on residential areas for nearly 10 days, killing more than 250 people including at least 40 children
  • shelled at least one area on Sunday, killing at least three people
  • Fifteen air strikes by the government side hit rebel-held areas in the city
  • Full control of Aleppo would be a huge prize for Assad
  • Government forces and their allies also fought Islamic State near Palmyra in central Syria
  • recaptured from the jihadists in March
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