The Daily Teaspoon. First to take a few moments to remember December 7,1941 and the Japanese attack on the US military bases at Pearl Harbor Hawaii. This attack happened 73 years ago and is quickly fading from the American consciousness. With only four survivors at this weekend ceremony the United States is moving on, all to soon there will be no more to in person testify to the American people about that horrible day. Personally this is the day I returned from Vietnam 48 years ago. To start my time in the real hell K Ward at Letterman Army Medical Center in San Francisco. When you get injured in the military and can no longer be returned to you duty you become red ink on the books. K Ward, the Orthopedic Ward, officially, is where the most f---ed up of the f---ed were sent. Amputees, Spinal cord, head wounds, eye wounds and horrific combinations of all. It was a intended as a 30 bed open ward that had at any one time 50-60 patients. Six of the patients were housed in a former Latrine. Imagine dying in a latrine. The death rate on the ward was one or two guys a week. One of the many injustices of the Vietnam War was that none of these guys were included on the Vietnam Wall Memorial. They didnt die in Vietnam they had the brashness to hang on for a few days before dying. If they were included there would be thousands more names on that wall. Ukraine/Russia/Putin. This was the week that Russian President Putin started showing the stress of the Ukraine and the effectiveness of the European and American sanctions. The Daily Teaspoon has great sympathy for the people of Russia who are and will be suffering because their leader, Forbes most Powerful man in the world is take his press seriously. There is little that the Europeans or American can or for that matter even want to do for Russia as long as Vladimir Putin is the President of the Russian Federation. On the frontier of the Russian Ukraine border there appears to be a troop build up, this may be because of rotating troops out of the area and replacing them with fresh troops. The Kiev Ukraine is having money problems and has put out the call that they will run out of cash before the end of the year. If there is any concern on the part of the G7 Europeans or the United States it is not evident. The Ukraines largest creditor is Russia who sells the Ukraine it petroleum. The Russian are insisting that the bill be paid in hard currency. Kiev is saying lower your prices and adjust the balance due. The problem here for Russia is if they cut off the gas they will also be cutting of winter heating to the ethnic Russian in the Ukraine. I wouldnt count this option out with Putin in charge but it would change the dynamics if the stand off. On other fonts President Putin has asked the oligarchs to bring some of the money they have stashed in foreign banks and currencies back to mother Russia. It is estimated that there is over $133 billion in revenue from the sale of oil that has been collected but not deposited into Russian banks. An estimate of Vladimir Putins own personal wealth (in US dollars) is about $70 billion. Perhaps the President should set the example. In the state of the Federation Speech that president Putin gave this past week he gave a rather interesting of why he had to take over the Crimea. It is the cradle of the Russian Orthodox religion. He gave a heart rendering story but fact checking exposes it as all fiction. In short other the a cheap and easy land grab there is no other reason for what Russia did in the Crimea. Although The Ukraine does have some cultural significance, Kiev was the first capitol of Russia, there is little to justify the attempts to take over the Ukraine. The Islamic State. This week it appears that the US is backing away from Iraq, again. a couple of weeks ago the leaderless dysfunctional bureaucratic Department of Defense (thanks WaPo) announced that the new Iraqi Security would consist of six or eight divisions instead of the fifteen divisions that was promised in 2009. Each division would be considerably smaller in size but have more combat power and much better training. Then this week President Obama in response to the question of under conditions would American become involved in ground operations with the Iraqi Security force, he gave an explicit answer, NONE. Late last week it was announced that the USAF was putting its A-10s in Kuwait and returning F-15s back to the United States. To many this seems to be a good idea. If we are not going to support the Iraqi Security Forces with ground combat units this would appear to be the second best support we can give a fleeting Iraqi military. But hold on a second. The USAF appears to have pulled a fast one on Congress and the American people. All of the A-10s are in National Guard Units that are rotated into activation wit the Real Air Force. When on active duty the USAF bares the cost of the A-10s which is said to be about $2.6 billion a year and 350 ground crew slots the USAF wants both the money and the personal for the F-35 even though the F-35A wont be operational until 2020 at the earliest, that is with the exception of the mandatory fly overs of the Super Bowels. The cost if the A-10s has cleverly been transferred to central Command which is funded with its own budget separate for the DoD. As far as the USAF is concerned the A-10s can be buried in the sands of Arabia. AKA Saddams Migs. The air mission appears to be taken over by Iran when flew at least two ground support for Iranian troops operating in Iraq. The planes chose for this mission were old Vietnam era F-4 Phantoms. It has been known that Iran has assumed what little ground combat there is in Iraq at the time. As things break out now daash (not the pejorative of daeh) controls everything west of the Tigris. East of the Tigris is up for grab. To show their defiance to Iraq this past week daash put up an image of an old US Hawk Anti Aircraft battery that is under its control, the free vs, black flag is daash. The Hawk MIM-23 anti aircraft has a range of about 30 miles and can take down a plane at 45,000 feet. It served in US units from 1960 to 2002 and units were well distributed in the Arab World. The units are mobile and not to hard to set up, hey the USMC used the so they cant be to complicated. This could be a rather interesting match up with the Islamist Terrorists firing made US Hawks at Iranian flying US made F-4s. As usual the US stumbles all over the place when confronted wit Iranian aircraft in Iraqi air space. First was the denial, the they said they were flying joint bit separate strike missions and gave an area south of Irbil and north of Baghdad where the Us was flying, when nobody could remember the US dropping and bombs recently in the area the target area nixed to north of Irbil. Again no body recalls any air strikes in the AO. It appears the last answer is no comment. Its rather a sorry condition when you cant even get everybody on the same page for the lies. Yes when the Washington Post called the DoD dysfunctional it made the right call. The accumulation of all the events above strongly indicate the US is walking away from Iraq, again which might be the best option before we dump a lot more money and lives in tern rat hole called Iraq. It is rather evident that the Sunni Iraqis appear to favor one of two choices either they support the daash lead Islamic Terrorists or the dont care as long as the Baghdad government doesnt go Shitte again. Even all of the gruesome beheading videos that have been up the past few months in Syria and the Anbar people in this country forget that the Sunni in booth The Anbar and in most of Syria were treated rather badly. I know its a radical idea but the best option is letting the people decide what they want. The Turks have already started getting acquainted with daash. daash has been seen moving in and out of Turkey along the border with Syria with out being molested by the Turkish military. This is a huge concession to daash from the Turkish government. From Turkeys point of view, they cant live with Assad and want him out and it appears the only group that has the power to evict him is daash. The Kurds are out of the question. The Kurds want an independent Kurdistan for 30 million Kurds and they want about a third of theTurkish state.. An Iranian controlled Iraq is simply put of the question with or with out US support. The Islamic Religious State is totally incompatible with the secular Turkey. The secondary struggle right now is with in the Islamic group itself. The acceding of daash to leadership is not universally favored in the Islamic world, although this week incursion of daash forces this week into Irbil and the extensive operational planning that appeared in Facebook, although impressive has little to do with who is in charge. I doubt if al Baghdadi will be the last assassinations with in Radical Islam. Which leads us to finally what all Americans are interested in the price of gas and heating oil. The prices are still falling. The comedy price of gasoline on November 29th. was at $1.94 a gallon. on December 5th. it was at $1.89. Heating oil in the same period dropped from $2.48 a gallon to $2.11 a gallon. Saudi Arabia lowered it benchmark floor to $60.00 a barrel from $70.00 a barrel the set just a week ago at the POEC meeting. Many speculators dont think with the current environment that even $50.00 a barrel floor can be held. The Islamic Groups who now control somewhere between 14-20% of the world crude oil output lower their price from $75.00 a barrel to $50.00 a barrel to outsiders and to $20.00 a barrel for domestic consumption. And yes the Islamists are selling petroleum to both Baghdad and to Damascus. The US is starting to see the benefits of cheap oil. In November 321,000 new permeant jobs were created bring down US unemployment to 5.8%. Over all retail sales are up about 1.5%. Nobody is yet projecting economic growth for the coming year yet but each week with the decline if gas and heating oil prices over a half billion dollars is going directly into consumers pockets.The price is declining and some are starting to talk of $2.50 a gallon gas in 2015. This is called economic growth the Federal Government can get rid of those inflation fighting stimulus packages, and let the market work. Some of the big boys are giving to bite the diet but wages will go up and so will consumption and perhaps with a couple of years of this banks may even start paying interest again, and Americans can start dreaming about a future again. Domestic Politics. The Republicans are loading up for a retake of 2012 aging, at least twenty people have takne out the paperwork to round for the Republican nomination and that doesnt include the two favorite Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush. Ann Romney has said they have run their last campaign and I think she has some influence on the matter with Mitt, Jeb Bush is playing the reluctant candidate. His biggest supporter is his brother George W. Bush. Regardless of who runs for the Republican slot the three showcase issues, Immigration, Healthcare and Minimum Wage. None of these fit any know Republican agenda. Mitt with his interview on Univision last week in Mexico calling for a permeant amnesty for all along with his support for the $10.11 min., wage earlier this year kinda removed himself from any serious consideration and Jeb Bush within his support of Common Core in Education and calling the current immigration policies a crime dint endure himself to the right wing of the party. The Democrats meanwhile wit a lock on HRC. Bubba doest want another 2008 to happen again and personally has taken control of the campaign and has corralled most of the Democratic money. Healthcare is HRCs issue and she will run on fixing it and enlarging it. With a growing economy she could have an easier sell. On Wages and Immigration she is well loaded up with local endorsements. Higher wages will provide more money for Healthcare which is her big issue and she has a lot of scores to settle with Congress. Right now the Democrats are attempting to bundle immigration and a higher minimum wage together as a growth package. If fas prices can stay down the money will be there with out raising taxes. Lastly for my fire arms owning friends. There are two product out there that have no reason for being other then killing people, not even the military can use them. One is a product we have talked about before her Black Ops ammunition. Hornady/HPR has now introduced rifle rounds in .223 62 grain and .308 in 165 grain, open tip frangible bullets, to go along with their handgun ammunition. The characteristics of these rifle bullets is that the can go through soft targets such as drywall, plywood and sheet metal, like in automobile doors intact and when they hit a human body they fragment. Thats really bad for the person getting hit. There is no purpose for these bullets expect to kill people. States should make them illegal. The next hew bullet is the 1 12 gage shotgun round. Mage by Aguila company these babies come in two flavors. A slug and a shot round that is a combination of .00 buck shot and BBs. A hallow copper shape charge round is said to be coming. The complete rounds are only 1 long and have greatly reduced recoil, although the effective range of the slug is about 50 yards and the shot at 25 yard they are still killing rounds. If you are tempted to try these shells out I recommend that you sue a break away load shot gun. The manufacture has some video on the internet that show a problem with extraction in a pump weapon. The problem is that the feed get in the way of the shell being extracted and you have a traffic jan in the receiver. The problem is not serious but any malfunction with a fire arms should not be taken lightly. It appears that in rode to sell more outrageous product the industry is making self defense a hobby. I read a post a few weeks ago from a mid size city Police Chief that has have several of his officers resign from the force because of open and concealed carry. He cited an example of a citizen that had crossed a crime scene tape with a had gun drawn and was trying to gel the police, he very easily could have been mistake for a person of interest that with a hand gun became very interesting. These new toys from the industry are unsafe and have no other use then to kill people. When an item is not even legal for the military people should take notice. When the word smiths in industry call a stock on a hand gun a stabilization brace, and illegal silencers noise suppressors to get around the wording of Federal Law its time to rein in the fire arms industry. ALLONS, Byron Skinner
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 03:40:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015