VE Day!

Nazi time Deutschland literally fought to annihilation -- until there was literally no country left to defend.

The Third Reich - she died kicking and screaming, finally crashing down in an orgy of pulverized, burning cities and a river of blood — civilian and military, German and non-German. Military history knows no year quite like 1944 -45 and if lucky, will never see another.

On May 7th the surviving ruling remnants of the once powerful Dritten Reich finally screamed "GOD! PLEASE! STOP!"

May 8th is Victory In Europe Day.

The legacy of VE Day is with us still. There never could have been a European Union - let alone a re unified Germany without Great Satan's will power, staying power and fire power.

And VE Day would not have been possible without Great Satan, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and the Russian Red Army's incredible ability to absorb horrific losses, to bounce back and win.

Happy VE Day!

Future Palestine

Wheee! After suffering more pressure than Waffen SS Panzer Division 'Das Reich' in Falaise Gap, the other half of the deadly serious yet amazingly risible intolerant Little Satan Hating Posse - Dr Mearsheimer finally succumbs to repeated pleading by all the cool kids to fantasize about 'Future Palestine"

So, does the Strip become the Riviera of the Med's SE 40? Fully crunk with bookstores, girl schools, churches, gay bars, Xian Youth Groups, Yacht Clubs, Hotels, Casinos, strip clubs and abortion clinics?

Does West Bank become a Mecca for cutting edge biz, manufacturing, shopping malls, education, high finance and fashion?

Nope.

"Future Palestine, and by that I mean the future of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, or what was long ago called Mandatory Palestine. As you all know, that land is now broken into two parts: Israel proper or what is sometime called “Green Line” Israel and the Occupied Territories, which include the West Bank and Gaza.

"In essence, about the future relationship between Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Given present circumstances there are four possible futures for Palestine, including Ye Olde "2 State Illusion."

"To be viable, that Palestine state would have to control 95 percent or more of the West Bank and all of Gaza. There would also have to be territorial swaps to compensate the Palestinians for those small pieces of West Bank territory that Israel got to keep in the final agreement. East Jerusalem would be the capital of the new Palestinian state.

"In the 2nd scenario, Greater Israel would become a democratic bi-national state in which Palestinians and Jews enjoy equal political rights. This solution has been suggested by a handful of Jews and a growing number of Palestinians. However, it would mean abandoning the original Zionist vision of a Jewish state, since the Palestinians would eventually outnumber the Jews in Greater Israel.

Third up?

"Israel could expel most of the Palestinians from Greater Israel, thereby preserving its Jewish character through an overt act of ethnic cleansing. This is what happened in 1948 when the Zionists drove roughly 700,000 Palestinians out of the territory that became the new state of Israel, and then prevented them from returning to their homes.

Following the Six Day War in 1967, Little Satan "...expelled between 100,000 and 260,000 Palestinians from the newly conquered West Bank and drove 80,000 Syrians from the Golan Heights.

"The scale of the expulsion, however, would have to be even greater this time, because there are about 5.5 million Palestinians living between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.

"The final alternative to a two-state solution is some form of apartheid, whereby Israel increases its control over the Occupied Territories, but allows the Palestinians to exercise limited autonomy in a set of disconnected and economically crippled enclaves.

Expulsions are terrible -- no doubt -- all those poor poor people having to flee their homes, refugee camps (estabbed eons ago, aided and abetted by kindred Arab nation states that for some unknown reason could not bear to assimilate their own cuzs -- who share the same dialect, customs, penchant for honor killings and tribalistic kleptocrazy) and leave the past behind.

So what?

Can't be any worse than the millions of refugees who fled before the old school Soviet juggernaut that redrew the face of Ost Europa hard on the heels of Deutschland's 'Drang Nach Osten"

Even better -- sweetly parceling out Palestinians to any of Arab League's kindred despotries (horrid and benign) would be a strategic re alignment of immense proportions!

5 and a half million of the most literate Arabs ever on the face of the earth, with a track record of voting in real, open transparent elections may very be the harbingers of democracy promotion for the Middle East in the New Millennium.

Pic - "Neither track of Palestinian politics — resistance or negotiation — offers hope of achieving independence."

Why Pakistan?

Land of the Pure is a magical place where anything can happen! Girls can learn to fly jets only 69 miles a way from where Pakistani Talibani brutally beat girls for promotional vids.

Pakistan's motto could very well be something like "Hey ya'll! Watch this!"

Why do Pakistan and the Pakistani diaspora crank out such a high proportion of the world's terrorists?

Just lucky!

"Indonesia has more Muslims than Pakistan. Turkey is geographically closer to the troubles of the Middle East. The governments of Iran and Syria are immeasurably more hostile to America and the West.

"Yet it is Pakistan, or its diaspora, that produced the CIA shooter Mir Aimal Kasi; the 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef (born in Kuwait to Pakistani parents); 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's kidnapper, Omar Saeed Sheikh; and three of the four men behind the July 2005 train and bus bombings in London.

"The list of jihadists not from Pakistan themselves—but whose passage to jihadism passes through that country—is even longer. Among them are Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mohamed Atta, shoe bomber Richard Reid, and John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban.

"Over the past decade, Pakistani fingerprints have shown up on terrorist plots in, among other places, Germany, Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands. And this partial catalogue doesn't include India, which tends to bear the brunt of its western neighbor's love affair with violence.

And it very may well get way worse way too soon...

Pic "Frantic in Talibanistan"

Cost Of Containment

At the same incredible instant that Persia's little rocketeer whines to the Un that Great Satan should be punished for shameful nukey naughtiness, news broke hot! intell that Great Satan has 5,113 new clear war heads with several K in reserve.

Madame Sec HRC smacked boo tay that Mullahopolis' hand picked pres "...offered the same tired, false, and sometimes wild accusations against the United States and other parties at this conference.

"But that’s not surprising. As you all heard this morning, Iran will do whatever it can to divert attention away from its own record and to attempt to evade accountability."

Whoa!

Definitive analysis of the costs of containing Iran.

There is, of course, much debate concerning what to do about Iran and the regime's pursuit of nuclear weapons. The policy proposals most frequently debated by wonks are: (1) sanctions, (2) military strikes, (3) working with, or at least supporting, the Iranian people in their efforts to overthrow the regime, (4) containment, and (5) do nothing. These are not mutually exclusive options, of course, but each comes with its own primary tactic and should come with a rigorous cost-benefit analysis.

Thinking through the costs of a "containment" strategy, similar to that used to contain the Soviet empire. This piece points out that the situation is very different from the Cold War, during which America was up against a legitimate super power as opposed to a "Third World upstart."

In recent months, however, the "contain Iran" strategy has garnered new prominence with very little thought (until Anton's piece) given to the costs of containment.

"The unstated (and probably unrealized) assumption underlying the contain-Iran argument is that, once Tehran is nuclear, America will have to get tougher.

"But how likely is that? If we won’t confront Iran over the killing of American soldiers now, why would our national spine get any stiffer in the face of a threat of nuclear retaliation?

"If we won’t do anything to stop Iran from getting the bomb, why should anyone believe that we will suddenly grow bolder once Iran actually has the bomb?

Pic "The Cost of Containment"

Bare Feet - Iron Will

35 years after the Fall of Saigon, Teufel Hunden Lieutenant Colonel James Zumwalt -- son of one of Great Satan's premier military families -- unleashes stories from the Other Side of Vietnam's battlefields

"Bare Feet - Iron Will"

"The stories include insights about medical conditions—such as conducting brain surgery without anesthesia; losing medical supplies to aerial attacks; doctors and nurses donating their own blood prior to surgery due to lack of refrigeration.

"Telling insights about Vietnam’s allies too—including China, a country with which Vietnam has fought in almost every century since Hanoi’s independence, and how China sought at times to give the appearance of helping North Vietnam while not doing so; North Korea, which pressured Hanoi to allow it to send pilots to fight the Americans, only to have Hanoi send the Koreans home, and how an effort was made to hide this participation by burying North Korean pilots in an obscure cemetery.

And of course -- the infamous Ho Chi Minh Autobahn:

"The Ho Chi Minh Trail, as you know, was a logistical supply line that brought men and materiel from the north down to the south. Obviously, they had to cross rivers at certain points. And the only way you cross a river is with a bridge. They would build bridges for the specific purpose of having as a target -- having a target that we would go after.

"They -- what they would do then is, upstream or downstream of that bridge, they would come up with very clever ways of hiding bridges. Well, how do you hide a bridge? One is a concept known as a submarine bridge, where they actually built a bridge platform underneath the low watermark.

"And, for those who served in Vietnam, they know that the -- the water is basically brown, so you cannot see from the air if there was anything under the water. But these submarine bridges were very effectively used.

"As convoys would cross them, they would have guides standing on either side of the bridge platform guiding them as to where the edges of the platform were. These existed for the duration of the war, and we never knew about them.

Only Colonel Z could write this book - every guy in his family served in Vietnam -

"In a bitter irony of that conflict for our family, it was the actions of my father, Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., in ordering the spraying of Agent Orange along the river and canal banks of the Delta region when he commanded all US naval forces in Vietnam that sealed my brother’s fate."

"I found my bitterness towards our former enemy growing as I sat across the table from those responsible for the deaths of so many Americans. That anger grew until I met Nguyen Huy Phan, a Vietnamese war veteran and physician. Ours was a one-on-one meeting. He began our conversation by extending his condolences for the loss of my brother.

"As we discussed the war and its impact, I could see tears in his eyes welling up. I soon learned, he too had lost a brother in the war. While I had had the benefit of being with my brother when he died, thus knowing how and when he passed, Phan did not. He spent many years trying to locate his brother’s remains so they could be returned to the village of his birth for proper burial—a very important part of Vietnamese culture.

"It was as Phan shared his story, I felt the change in my attitude about the war occur. For the first time I asked myself, “Was the loss of a loved one any less devastating just because it took place on the other side of the battlefield?” The obvious answer was “no.” Two men—whom fate had placed on opposite sides of the battlefield—lost brothers they loved and were devastated by that loss.

"It was through this experience I came to realize the stories that took place on the other side of the battlefield during the Vietnam conflict needed to be told—and made the commitment to do so.

Pic - "10 Thousand Days of Thunder"

Little Bit Of Heartache Never Hurt Anyone

Hyper Puissance

You know it playa!

Despite heated, repeated, easily defeated handwringing like Weenie Hut Juniors, Uncle Paddy's hissy fits or the Frenchie L'Femme style inner ethical wrestling match for a humble stumble down internat'l lane -- daemoneoconservatism --neocon'ism is still hotter than a firecracker!

"Far from being some curious isolated cult, neoconservatives are therefore an integral part of current American foreign policy debates, with realists and liberals as their main sparring partners"

"First of all, schools of thought are made of men and women, as well as institutions that support them and publications that relay their views and shape the public debate. On this count, neoconservatives are well positioned. Skilled thinkers and writers are in large supply.

"In this sense, neoconservatism is regenerating itself and keeping a balanced age pyramid. After all, its idealistic, moralistic and patriotic appeal may be better suited to attract young thinkers than the prudent and reasonable calculations of realism.

Uh, huh?

'Prudent and reasonable calculations of realism?"

Oh - well, see -- the corrupt, amoral cult of 'stability' and the status quo posse just Do. Not. Get it.

Why even tolerate actor outers, state or non state? Why not sweetly hip honk the world into the new millennium with fun and free choice?

Dilemmes d'une hyperpuissance -- Great Satan's gig in the modern world which she herself aided and created -- and which daemoneocons enjoy fixing -- rather than managing --deploy five pillars of thought to ensure Great Satan's hyper puissance in any endeavor:

Internat'lism, Primacy, Unilateralism, Militarism and Democrazy Promotion:

Lowry Institute's piece re chronicles the sexyfully crunk "Continuing Prominance" that a new wave of democrazie cats and ancient avatars are enjoying, espousing and enlightening.

Simply put:

America ain't what's wrong with the world, being powerful and unique - the only one of her kind! - is Great Satan's birthright. And just like Spider - Man "With great power comes great responsibility"

It came with the turf. Just lucky - bad or good - Great Satan racked up one heck of a military biz during the half century since WWII time Deutschland and Nippon gave up fascist and imperial ghosts and succumbed to Regime Changes.

While Europa rebuilt, recovered and rehabbed, Warsaw Pact time Russia laid out of real combat (except for losing their hide in Afghanistan) and used Soviet homies and local fanboys to do the fighting.

Not Great Satan! She was involved with combat ops nearly everywhere. Korea, Greece, Vietnam, Cambodia, Dominican Repub, El Salvador, Grenada, Lebanon, Libya, Panama, Kuwait, Somalia, Kosovo, the Balkans, Afghanistan and of course, her latest regime change - Iraq

Great Satan and her fully crunk Posse of Hot! Democrazies have "...a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder."

"This does not mean that neocons want to impose democracy at the point of a gun, as their critics often charge. ‘Exporting democracy’ was never the primary goal of the Iraq invasion. But dismissing it as an expost facto justification is equally inaccurate.

"In fact, the lack of democracy was considered a key explanation for the instability of the Middle East, so it had to be addressed if America wanted to treat the disease of terrorism, proliferation and rogue states, and not just the symptoms – and it also happened to be the right thing to do in principle. "

Pic "Puissance. It's funny 'cause it true"