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Friday, November 9, 2018

“Let’s Have a War with Russia!” I’d Rather Be Ruled by Autistic Hamsters

By Fred Reed, Fred On Everything, November 05, 2018

The United States seems to be contemplating war with Russia, Iran, China, or all three as Washington pushes NATO ever closer to Russia, leaves the nuclear-missile treaty and tries to destroy both countries and China economically. Why the push for war?

Simple. Asia is awakening. China (from which I have just returned) grows economically at a scorching pace–and all power rests on economic power. China is a large country, America a medium-sized one. America’s roughly two hundred million whites do virtually all of the scientific work on which national power depends. China has a billion increasingly educated Han Chinese, a five-to-one advantage. China’s stated aim is to unite Eurasia among other places in one vast commercial union. Washington’s pugnacity has pushed China, Iran, and Russia together. The chain of nations, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey all totter between looking east and looking west. If Washington doesn’t stop this growth, the American Empire will be marginalized within decades.

What would a war with Russia look like, even assuming that it didn’t go nuclear? A great military thinker–me, actually–once said that military stupidity comes in three levels: normally stupid; really really stupid; and invading Russia. Throughout history it has proved a poor career move.

The US military has not won a war since 1945, with the exception of the First Gulf War, which the LAPD could have won. It lost decisively in Vietnam. It got run out of Lebanon with 241 dead Marines as its only accomplishment. After seventeen years it shows no signs of defeating barely armed Afghan peasants. Iraq has been a complete botch, achieving none of its goals, control of the oil, permanent bases, and a puppet government. Just now the military is losing in Syria.

Nothing short of genius can account for losing so consistently given the enormous resources available to American forces. In light of this very low level of military competence, maybe wars are not our best choice of hobby.

What sort of war is envisaged? The United States cannot fight a sizable land war. Iran can. Russia can. The American military means air power and little else. The Army hasn’t fought a serious war since 1973, the fleet since 1945. In long periods of inaction, things deteriorate because they do not seem important. Crucial supplies cease to exist, spare parts aren’t there, the logistics train quietly becomes inoperable. Money goes instead to pricey weapons of little practical use.

The Army recruits from a soft millennial population. America is no longer a country of tough rural kids. Social engineering has rotted the ranks. Conscription is politically impossible. The Army cannot defeat Afghans even with the advantages of unlimited air power, artillery, gunships, medevac, helicopters, and drones.

A military that never fights a war that it has to win, that never encounters an enemy that can dangerously hit back, inevitably deteriorates.

Militaries come to believe their own propaganda. So, apparently, do the feral mollycoddles in the White House and New York. The American military’s normal procedure is to overestimate American power, underestimate the enemy, and misunderstand the kind of war it is getting into. Should Washington decide on war with Iran, or Russia (unless by a surprise nuclear strike) there will be the usual talk of the most powerful, best trained, best equipped etc., and how the Ivans and towelheads will melt away in days, a cakewalk. Bet me.

Militaries have a very poor record of predicting outcomes of wars. This might provoke thought. The American Civil War was expected to be over in an afternoon; this was wrong by 650,000 dead and four years. When Napoleon invaded Russia, he did not expect Russians to occupy Paris. Germany thought that WWI would be over in weeks; in fact a ghastly war of attrition lasting four years. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, it was not intentionally inviting GIs to the geisha houses of Tokyo. When Germany invaded Poland, occupation of Germany by Russia and America was low on its list of expectations. When France re-invaded Vietnam, it did not foresee Dien Bien Phu and utter defeat. When America invaded Vietnam, it did not expect a decade-long losing war. When Russia invaded Afghanistan it did not expect to lose to Afghans in sandals. When America invaded Afghanistan, having seen what had happened to Russia, it did not expect the same result.

We do not know what a war with Iran, or Russia, or China would look like or what the Iranians might do. An overconfident military and an inexperienced government in Washington will predictably predict a short war and speak of precision weapons and surgical strikes. The Navy will guarantee that it can keep the Straits open, and speak of its advanced technology. The expectation will be that there will be nothing unexpected. The white House will believe that Iran will lie there and be bombed without response. Russia? The nukes will fall on the European countries from which the attack came. Germany might ponder this carefully.

America could of course destroy much of Iran and kill millions of the defenseless. This is what America now calls “war.” It would be amusing to see what would happen if the Air Force had to fight an enemy that could fight back, but this would mean only Russia or, perhaps, to some extent, China. It is a coward’s way of war and, to judge by South Vietnam and Afghanistan, not very effective. Killing lots of people and winning a war are not the same thing.

What if Iran did stop petroleum traffic in the Persian Gulf with, say, missiles mounted on pickup trucks. Is this possible? I don’t know. Neither, I suspect, does the Navy–which will insist that it can handle mere pickup trucks with its superb this and that, its best trained, best equipped, the only hyperpower, and so on. But tankers are not going to run even a small risk of going up in flames.

How long would the Straits have to be closed with the world screaming for oil before Washington, desperate, its vanity bruised, full of huge egos, would have to do something stupid to save face?

Further, American leadership is of dangerously low quality. An essentially absentee Congress, the sordidness and criminality of the Clintons, Trump’s utter crassness and shady past, the submission to Israel, the widespread and never punished corruption. In this sorry brew no one seems interested in the well-being of the county, only unseemly grasping at benefits for the arms industry, big oil, Wall Street, Tel Aviv, and the Empire. Note that wars generate huge profits for the arms makers, and the longer the war can be kept going, neither winning nor losing, the greater the profits. War against Iran would be a magnificent profit center. Since American casualties are extremely low, permanent war has few downsides.

At the top of government we have an unprepossessing bunch that would make Kaiser Wilhelm’s court seem wholesome. Their chief characteristics are pathological aggressiveness and a severe case of Beltway Bubble Syndrome. There is Trump with his weird eruptions. The ever-combative Nikki Haley. Mike Pompeo, threatening Iran, threatening Venezuela, threatening North Korea. John Bolton of the codpiece mustaches, always counseling a war he won’t fight in, a draft dodger with something to prove.

The life of millions depends on this freak show? I need a drink.

Comment by Dennis: Slowly, but surely we move in the direction of Armageddon. Maybe not in our life time, but maybe so. Our rejection of God as nations, and the augment of iniquity in the hands of the American Empire through its wars, both economic and military, besides the spiritual pollution semenated through the media, is causing the world to take note and at the time appointed the prophectic day will come.

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Friday, November 2, 2018

Angola Humanitarian and Mission Trip - 2018

My wife and I just returned from an inspiring month's visit to Angola. We have been helping to support an effort by a friend living there to create a Community Center for the children in her neighborhood.

Many of these families live in homes without electricity or water. A few months ago through the help of a kind friend in Portugal, we were able to rent a property for a year where we could begin the project. The children from ages three to fifteen can come to the center from two o'clock until six. During that time they have activities with a teacher including reading and listening to stories, number work, writing practice, and group games including goal shots, hit the can hanging from a pole, potatoe sack race, etc. The final event is the meal served around five o'clock. Afterwards the older children help with sweeping the grounds and returning the pots, pans, and plates and cups to the mission center not far away.

Roadside stop on the highway to Benguela
We arrived in Luanda at 2:30 am after a long flight through Morocco. Knowing that the mosquitos could carry Yellow Fever or malaria kept us quite nervous even though we had prayed that the Lord would protect us from all evil. At 5:00 am a friend of the mission took us to the bus station to our bus to Benguela where we were to stay for the month. Our bus left at 8:00 am and started on the long journey south. Some years ago the Chinese had built a highway to Benguela, but within five years the road began to break up. What had orginally taken 4 hours on the new highway, now would take us over 12 hours as the bus had to continually leave the broken up highway to use a dirt road along side the highway.

Some time near to nine o'clock at night we arrived in Benguela and Ana and Pedro were there to pick us up. That was good because my phone's battery had gone down, even though I had a new chip for the Angolan system.

Ana and Pedro have a nice house in a neighborhood just outside the center of Benguela, a city of 300,000 urban inhabitants and 300,000 provincial inhabitants. Benguela is along the Atlantic ocean some 542 kilometers south of Luanda, the capital, and located at 12º south latitude and 13º east longitude.


To help you have an idea of where Angola is situated, Berlin is located at 52º north latitude and 13º east longitude. Both Benguela and Berlin are at the same longitude, but the difference is in the latitude. Benguela is 12º south of the equator, while Berlin is 52º north of the equator. Being close to the equator means that the seasons in Benguela are not as pronounced as those farther from the equator. The daily amount of sunlight in Benguela is quite similar throughout the year with the sun rising around 5:30 am and setting around 6:00 pm. The summer months do however get very hot and visits to Benguela are better before or after the summer months. Angola is above the word South Africa on the map, along the coast. Namibia is between Angola and South Africa.

Here I am with the first cook we had hired for the project. She was 54 years old and had had 12 children, five of whom had died. Her husband had also died some months previously, so she was very sad. I got to talk to her because I asked her why she seemed so sad. We talked about faith in God and how our loved ones go to be with God when they die. How sad it must make our loved ones to see us sad while they are enjoying eternity with God. We prayed together. I shared what God's word says, "The joy of the Lord is our strength." She definately was happier and took our time together to heart.


These are two of the children that Ana and Pedro are taking care of. Carlos is 6 years old and Maria Angela is 3 years old. Maria has a hearing problem but is very expressive with her eyes. I spent time using the Uno cards to practice numbers with them. Carlos goes to a local school in Benguela, but Maria Angela is home all day. She enjoys her time at the community center with the other children. Ana and Pedro have another "adopted" son called Pedro who is fourteen years old. We will see him a little later.  He attends a Catholic school in Benguela but lives at the school during the week to help him concentrate on his studies. 

Here I am with Saviola the Angolan man we have contracted to work with the children as teacher and coordinator of the children's activities. He's 29 year old and himself was brought up in a local orphanage not too far away. As a results, he has a heart for the children and young people in our neighborhood that come from poor families. He knows all the different situations and helps greatly in our understanding of the problems that each child confronts. He knows which children are more needy. He's a good teacher and has a good relation with the older boys which helps him, many times single-handedly, care for the 50 plus children who attend the center.

From 2:00 pm the childen begin to arrive at the center. Not enough school exist in the area so the children go to school in shifts. Some children go in the morning, while others go in the afternoon. 9:00 am to 1:00 pm, or 1:30 pm to 5:30 pm are the schedules. Many of the children have difficulty reading. They have no books at home and no electricity which means no television.

We brought some children's books for the center and the children and young boys would spend the first hour at the center reading through the books.


The fact that most of the children rarely watched television made them very hungry for any type of mental stimulation. The children and young people were very communicative. We didn't notice any generation gap. Even in their difficult living conditions they were generally happy.

After the children had free reading time, Ana would arrive to read them a united story. Many stories she chose were from the "Children's Bible Stories." The children and young people would sit and attentively listen. Ana would act the story out and pull out some of the older boys to help her. She's very animated even at 56 years of age.

After the story, Saviola would begin the united activities with the children and young boys. The games were usually the same each day. They would first play a game of trying to hit a can hanging from a clothes line with a ball. The ball was made from a piece of old cloth stuffed with plastic bags and then tied. The boy at the left is showing you the type of balls they play with.

Saviola has made the rule that the winning team during the game period gets to help with the distribution of the food at the end of the day. Saviola would divide the group into two teams and at the end of the contests, the older boys of the winning team would help give out the food. All the boys were interested in winning because it often resulted in a slightly bigger portion of food. We have had to balance this idea of Saviola's as the boys were going over board and keeping too much food for themselves. "The violent take it by force." But we want to teach them Christian ethics like, "let all things be done decently and in order," and "esteeming others better than ourselves." So we've had some talks and the boys are doing a lot better.


The next game was the rice sack race.
After that race came the goal shots. As usual the game can get very intense.
After the games the children line up to wash their hands.
Then they sit down to eat.
The older boys help give out the food and serve.
These boys helped to carry the pots and pans and dishes back home, while other boys would help sweep the patio for the next day in a similar way that their mothers sweep at home.
The next day we were able to visit the local orphanage and saw the desks and benches that are used there. We decided these were just what we needed to get the children off the floor and made an order with the orphanage to build some for us. The above photo is of an outside classroom at the orphanage with the type of tables and benches we will soon be using at our center.

Walking back from the orphanage I saw these older women carrying their loads on their heads. Most of the women that you see are selling something. You don't see so many older women. People die younger in Africa. The majority of the people walking about are young adults or children. Even though Angola has been a communist country since its independence from Portugal, the people are deeply religious and abortion is against the law. Maybe the communists and the Catholics made some secret agreement. In any case, Angola is a country of young people, its exploding with young people. But the problem is that the young people are by and large not getting a good formation and the economy is stagnant, offering little opportunity for work. Instead of producing food to feed the country, Angola imports much  food products from South Africa. The poor live on a diet of imported rice and beans. Bananas are cheap and the children knock the mangos from the trees even before they are ripe and well developed. It's a very sad situation that the rich of the world have maintained in order to safe-guard their riches, in this case, the oil and minerals Angola produces.

I also was able to speak with Father Quim the director of the orphanage and arranged to come and speak to the boys about my testimony of how I had found God. Coming from an American born in Brooklyn, New York, this sounded like it could be interesting and the priest gave me the go-ahead. After my first talk, he invited me back twice a week for the duration of my stay. I was also able to show the movie "Sister Act" part one which the boys enjoyed immensely. I taught the boys to sing the song "Because He Lives, I Can Face Tomorrow."

On the weekend I went with Ana and Pedro to a birthday party. They had been hired to do the animation for the children. Ana and Pedro had worked with me in Portugal some 16 years ago when my wife and I had a small animation company as part of our NGO. They are very good face-painters and balloon sculpters. Ana does an improntu animation with the children through music and games.


The next evening we were invited out with a Cuban/Portuguese couple we had met. They took us over to Lobito a city about a half an hour from Benguela. It has a better port for large ships and so was the main port for export and import activities from the time of the Portuguese colonists. Julian, the Cuban, introduced us to Sr. Miguel a restaurant owner. We were able to talk to him about our project and he agreed to help with vegetables for the children as he also owns and operates a large plantation. Here he is on the day after when he came with some food stuffs for the project.
On Sunday I went for a walk along the river and saw the people digging for water to wash themselves and, or their clothes.

While doing my jogging I would pass many children sitting outside their homes unattended while playing in the dirt. As a results of playing in the dirt and because they have little running water to clean, many children have skin diseases from organism that live in the dirt.
While their mothers washed clothes in the river, these children were playing safely in the sand by the riverside. They used whatever they could for toys. I felt my camera was intruding on their privacy.

If you would like to send a donation to help our work in Angola you can use the following bank account of Pedro in Portugal.

CONTA PARTICULARES
Nome Cliente /Name of Client:PEDRO NUNO GARCIA VIANA
Interveniência:TITULAR
IBAN:PT50.0036.0030.99101453683.38
BIC/SWIFT:MPIOPTPL

The name of the bank is Montepio, located in Porto in Portugal.  Otherwise, donations can be sent to our PayPal. If you are interested you can WhatsApp  me at +351 915016534 or e-mail me at dennismedwards@gmail.com. Thanks

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