WoW!!

WoW - the Watchers Council- it's the oldest, longest running cyber comte d'guere ensembe in existence - started online in 1912 by Sirs Jacky Fisher and Winston Churchill themselves - an eclective collective of cats both cruel and benign with their ability to put steel on target (figuratively - natch) on a wide variety of topictry across American, Allied, Frenemy and Enemy concerns, memes, delights and discourse.

Every week these cats hook up each other with hot hits and big phazed cookies to peruse and then vote on their individual fancy catchers.

Thusly sans further adieu (or a don"t)

Council Winners

• *First place with 3 votes!–Joshuapundit–Is Obama An Anti-Semite?
• Second place with 2 1/3 votes –The Right Planet – Collective Man: A Socialist Primer
• Third place with 2 votes –The Noisy Room – Civil Disobedience – Defying The Powers-That-Be For Your Christian Beliefs
• Fourth place with 1 2/3 votes –Nice Deb – Flashback: Farrakhan Said “Stalk Them and Kill Them”
• Fifth place with 1 vote–Don Surber – Let Trump write the immigration platform
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote –VA Right! – People Who Don’t ‘Get’ Trump Don’t Understand New Yorkers
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote –The Independent Sentinel – Wait Until You See What the Department of Education Is Going to Do to Us
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – Bookworm Room – Why didn’t the Haas business school at Berkeley just ask me about electric car subsidies?
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – Puma By Design – Gay Mafia Pissed at de Blasio’s Role in Raid of Gay Prostitution Website

  Non-Council Winners

  • First place with 2 votes! –Charlie Daniels/CNS News – Charlie Daniels’ Open Letter to Congress: ‘You’ve Betrayed Your Country’ submitted by Joshuapundit
  • Second place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –Sean Davis/The Federalist – BREAKING: Hillary Intentionally Originated And Distributed Highly Classified Information submitted by The Glittering Eye
  • Second place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –Peggy Noonan/WSJ – America Is So In Play submitted by The Watcher
  • Second place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –Victor Davis Hanson – How Illegal Immigration Finally Turned Off the Public submitted by The Watcher
  • Third place *t* with 1 vote –Reason.com –Europe’s Restrictive Gun Laws Disarm Victims, Not Terrorists submitted by Bookworm Room
  • Third place *t* with 1 vote –Michelle Obama’s Mirror –I Find This Whole Pronoun Affair Disgusting submitted by The Noisy Room
  • Third place *t* with 1 vote –FrontPageMag –The Racist Cult Of Black Fragility submitted by The Independent Sentinel
  • Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes – W. McCants/Brookings Institute –The Life of ISIS Leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
  • Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes –Conservative Treehouse –Rush Limbaugh Recognizes The GOPe Splitter Strategy… submitted by Puma By Design
  • Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes –Intellectual Conservative – Bernie Sanders, Alexis De Tocqueville, and Hayek’s warning submitted by The Right Planet
  • Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes –Kevin D. Williamson/NRO – Why Walmart Is Reducing Worker Hours, After Raising the Minimum Wage — and Other Lessons in Reality
    submitted by The Watcher
  • Fifth place with 1/3 vote –Reason.com –Plastic Bags Are Good For You submitted by The Razor
  See you next week!

After Abbas

Nakbah!!

So, as the Palestinian Authority becomes suspect because of their magical inability to hold elections in over a decade - time to day dream about what all hap hap happens when M'moud Abbas/Abu Mazen decides to bail out for his beach front villa in Qatar...

The Palestinian political scene has been preoccupied since the end of July with the succession of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and the subsequent concerns and worrying speculations about the future of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank in Abbas’ potential absence. There are concerns among Palestinians that the PA will be emptied of its political content, and that it will gradually be transformed into expanded municipal councils that fulfill service roles, like before the establishment of the PA in 1994.

  This scenario of the PA turning into municipal councils would stand in the way of the establishment of a Palestinian state, as Palestinians consider the PA to be a prelude to a future state. Meanwhile, Israel would gradually retake control of Palestinians’ lives, with the efforts since the establishment of the PA going down the drain.

  Mohammad Shtayyeh, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee and former minister of public works and housing, told Al-Monitor, “Israel is seeking to make Palestinians live in cantons and secluded areas in the absence of political components and the PA has become merely a name that does not span beyond an expanded municipality.”

     Maj. Gen. Mohammad al-Masri, former officer at the Palestinian General Intelligence and head of the Palestinian Center for Strategic Studies, warned Aug. 15 against an Israeli plan to weaken the PA. In the upcoming stage, Israel will deal with municipalities and Palestinian parties in the West Bank directly, thus weakening the PA and costing it much of its legitimacy.

The Palestinian fears of the PA’s marginalization coincided with Israel’s warning that it will have to manage the situation in the West Bank after Abbas is no longer in the picture. Israeli commentator on Palestinian affairs Avi Issacharoff stated Aug. 17 in a Times of Israel article that Gen. Yoav Mordechai, who is the coordinator of the Palestinian territories’ affairs in the Israeli Defense Ministry, might be placed directly in charge of the West Bank’s affairs.

There are many possible scenarios for the PA’s future after Abbas. Therefore, Palestinian decision-makers are faced with tough questions: Will the PA, which was established as an interim authority until the establishment of the Palestinian state, end up at the mercy of Israel? Is the PA already governed by Israel? Or will it become a security entity affiliated with the Israeli military and its security apparatus soon after entering a political vacuum?

Secret Drone Wars!

Incirlik Air Base coming in handy about now!

The CIA and U.S. Special Operations forces have launched a secret campaign to hunt terrorism suspects in Syria as part of a targeted killing program that is run separately from the broader U.S. military offensive against the Islamic State, U.S. officials said.

The CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) are flying drones over Syria in a collaboration responsible for several recent strikes against senior Islamic State operatives, the officials said. Among those killed was a British militant thought to be an architect of the terrorist group’s effort to use social media to incite attacks in the United States

The clandestine program represents a significant escalation of the CIA’s involvement in the war in Syria, enlisting the agency’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC) against a militant group that many officials believe has eclipsed al-Qaeda as a threat.

Although the CTC has been given an expanded role in identifying and locating senior Islamic State figures, U.S. officials said the strikes are being carried out exclusively by JSOC. The officials said the program is aimed at terrorism suspects deemed “high-value targets.”

The decision to enlist the CIA and JSOC reflects rising anxiety among U.S. counterterrorism officials about the danger the Islamic State poses, as well as frustration with the failure of conventional strikes to degrade the group’s strength.

Against that backdrop, the Obama administration has turned again to two of its preferred weapons against terrorist groups: the CTC, which pioneered the use of armed drones and led the search for Osama bin Laden, and JSOC, which includes the elite commando unit that carried out the raid that killed the al-Qaeda chief.

The new adversary, however, poses different challenges. Unlike al-Qaeda, the Islamic State has extensive territory, a seemingly endless stream of recruits, and a deep roster of senior operatives, many of whom served in the military of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The program so far accounts for only a handful of strikes, a tiny fraction of the more than 2,450 conducted in Syria over the past year. That broader U.S.-led assault, which also includes an additional 4,000 strikes in Iraq, has relied on conventional bombs to dislodge the Islamic State from territory it has seized.

The involvement of the CIA complicates one of 44’s remaining counterterrorism policy goals of gradually reversing the agency’s evolution from spy service to paramilitary force. Last year,44 signaled his intent to have the agency cede control of drone strikes to the Defense Department and return the spy service’s focus to more traditional categories of espionage.

Instead, Syria is a new front in a spreading campaign of secret operations and drone strikes that encompasses Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and parts of North Africa.

Faced with those obstacles, administration officials now see the hybrid approach in Syria as a possible way to salvage at least part of 44’s plan. The agency will remain deeply involved in “finding and fixing” terrorism targets in collaboration with JSOC but will leave the “finish” to the military, at least in Syria

Fall Weiß

At dawn on September 1st, Luftwaffe struck at Polish airfields destroying most of the planes before they could get off the ground. With control of the skies assured wicked Wehrmacht began the systematic destruction of railroads and the few communications nodes. From the very outset the Poles mobilization plan was seriously compromised. Before the day ended, chaos reigned at Polish Army HQ.

The first phase of the campaign, fought on the frontiers was over by September 5th and the morning of the 7th found reconnaissance elements of Army Group South’s 10th Army just 36 miles southwest of Warsaw. Meanwhile, also on September 5th, vBock’s Army Group North had cut across the corridor and turned southeast for Warsaw. Units of the 3rd Army reached the banks of the River Narew on September 7th, just 25 miles north of Warsaw. The fast moving armored panzer 'Schwerpunkts' of blitzing attacks left the immobile Polish armies cut up, surrounded and out of supply.

Meanwhile the closing of the inner ring at Warsaw witnessed some tough fighting as the Polish Poznan Army, bypassed in the first week of the war, charged heading and attacked toward Warsaw to the southeast. The German 8th and 10th Armies were put to the test as they were forced to turn some divisions completely around to meet the desperate Polish assault. In the end the gallant attack fell short and by September 19th the Poznan Army surrendered some 100,000 men and Poland’s last intact army.

As this was occurring the second, more deeper envelopment led by General Heinz Guderian’s panzers took the city of Brest-Litovsk on September 17th, and continued past the city where they made contact with the 10th Army spearhead at Wlodowa 30 miles to the south.

The war, for all practical purposes was over by September 17th. Lvov surrendered on the 19th. Warsaw held out until September 27th, gave up the ghost and the last organized resistance ended October 6th with the surrender of 17,000 Polish soldiers at Kock.

The campaign had lasted less than two months and ended in the destruction of the Polish Army and the fourth partition of Poland. German losses were surprisingly heavy considering the brevity of the campaign.

Deutsch casualties total some 48,000 of which 16,000 were killed. Fully one quarter of the panzers the German committed to battle were lost to Polish anti-panzer guns.  Luftwaffe was forced to trash  550 aircraft.

It was not a cheap victory by any means but it did confirm to the generals of  Wehrmacht that the military machine that they had built was indeed the best in the world and worthy of their confidence.

Reaction around the world on 1 Sept 1939?

France - mobilized her military and demanded Deutschland withdraw from Poland.

Great Britain - mobilized her army and RAF (the Navy was mobilized the day before) and demanded Germany withdraw from Poland.

Italy - Announced no military plans or initiatives.

Russia - warned concern for civilian population of Russian descent and fear of Polish bandits would warrant armed intervention. She also mobilized her military.

Great Satan - Demanded a halt of indescriminate bombing of towns and civilians.

Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Swiss - announced neutrality

Deutschland - "Determined to eliminate insecurity and perpetual civil war from the borders of the Reich"

Poland - appealed to Great Britain and France to intervene in honour of the Mutual Assistance Treaty of 1939.

1 September is the day an old world order was violently overturned, chock full of lessons, promises and harbingers that echo still today.

5th Column

Sore spot?

“Trahison des Professeurs: The Critical Law of Armed Conflict Academy as an Islamist Fifth Column”, appeared in the most recent issue of the National Security Law Journal, a student-run publication at the George Mason School of Law.

In a lengthy academic paper, the professor, William C Bradford, proposes to threaten “Islamic holy sites” as part of a war against undifferentiated Islamic radicalism. That war ought to be prosecuted vigorously, he wrote, “even if it means great destruction, innumerable enemy casualties, and civilian collateral damage”.

This “clique of about forty” scholars, Bradford writes, have “converted the US legal academy into a cohort whose vituperative pronouncements on the illegality of the US resort to force and subsequent conduct in the war against Islamism” represent a “super-weapon that supports Islamist military operations” aimed at “American political will” to fight. They are supported by “compliant journalists” marked by “defeatism, instinctive antipathy to war, and empathy for American adversaries”, but Bradford considers the lawyers a greater threat.

The offending legal scholars “effectively tilt the battlefield against US forces [and] contribute to timorousness and lethargy in US military commanders”, he writes. They are among several “useful idiots” who “separate Islam from Islamists by attributing to the former principles in common with the West, including ‘justice and progress’ and ‘the dignity of all human beings’”.

The West Point faculty member urges the US to wage “total war” on “Islamism”, using “conventional and nuclear force and [psychological operations]”, in order to “leave them prepared to coexist with the West or be utterly eradicated”. He suggests in a footnote that “threatening Islamic holy sites might create deterrence, discredit Islamism, and falsify the assumption that decadence renders Western restraint inevitable”.

As may be ascertained - the professor is getting creamed...  

WoW!

WoW - the Watchers Council- it's the oldest, longest running cyber comte d'guere ensembe in existence - started online in 1912 by Sirs Jacky Fisher and Winston Churchill themselves - an eclective collective of cats both cruel and benign with their ability to put steel on target (figuratively - natch) on a wide variety of topictry across American, Allied, Frenemy and Enemy concerns, memes, delights and discourse.

Every week these cats hook up each other with hot hits and big phazed cookies to peruse and then vote on their individual fancy catchers.

Thusly sans further adieu (or a don"t)

Council Winners

*First place with 3 2/3 votes!–Puma By Design – Black Lives Matter Hypocrites Oblivious to Epidemic of Black Violence, Genocide

Second place *t* with 2 1/3 votes – Bookworm Room – The collected (nit)wit and un(wisdom) of Bernie Sanders

Second place *t* with 2 1/3 votes – The Right Planet – Jurisdiction, Common Law and Birthright Citizenship

Third place *t* with 2/3 votes –The Noisy Room – Ted Cruz: Rise Of The Evangelical & Constitutional Warrior

Third place *t* with 2/3 votes –Don Surber – Astaire Way To Heaven

Third place *t* with 2/3 votes –The Razor – American Imperialist Baby Killers Racially Profile and Attack Muslim

Fourth place *t* with 1/3 votes –The Independent Sentinel – Decorated Green Beret Discharged for Shoving an Afghan Child Rapist

Fourth place *t* with 1/3 votes –Nice Deb – Intel Ops: Hillary broke “So many” laws (Video)

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 3 votes!–The Federalist –The Hugo Awards: Why The #WaronNerds Is A War on Art submitted by The Noisy Room
• Second place with 2 votes –John Bolton/NRO – The Vienna Deal Sets up a Choice of Bad and Worse submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Third place with 1 1/3 votes –Sultan Knish/NRO–Mohammed Was A Pig submitted by Bookworm Room
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote –Andrew Bostom/PJ Media – Deal Partner? Read Khamenei’s Mainstream, Koranic Kampf Supporting Israel’s Annihilation submitted by Joshuapundit
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote –Paul Pauker/American Thinker – The Morality of Mass Deportation submitted by The Watcher
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes –The Market Monetarist – The ‘dollar bloc’ was never an optimal currency area and now it is falling apart submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes –The Other McCain –War Against Human Nature: Radical Feminism’s Anti-Maternal Rage submitted by Nice Deb
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes –Brendan Bordelon/NRO – Hillary Clinton’s Sycophantic Inner Circle submitted by Don Surber
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –The Z Man – Something’s happening here submitted by The Right Planet
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Victor Davis Hanson –As the EPA and IRS Have Shown, with Big Government Comes Little Accountability submitted by The Independent Sentinel

See you next week!

The Return Of The Kaga!

Climb Mount Niitaka!

Japan has launched the second in its new class of helicopter carrier — the largest Japanese ships since World War II — in a Thursday ceremony in Yokohama.

The 24,000-ton Kaga (DDH-184) — built by ship builder Japan Marine United — bears the same name as the World War II Imperial Japanese Navy carrier Kaga that was part of Pearl Harbor attack and was sunk in the Battle Midway.

The ship follows JS Izumo (DDH-183) which entered service in the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) in March.

The Japanese have said the primary roles of the two ships are anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HADR) operations.

The ships “heightens our ability to deal with Chinese submarines that have become more difficult to detect,” a JMSDF officer told Asahi Shimbum in March.

The ships will field seven Mitsubishi-built SH-60k ASW helicopters and seven AgustaWestland MCM-101 mine countermeasure (MCM) helicopters, U.S. Naval Institute’s Combat Fleets of the World.

There is a potential for the two ships to work with American MV-22s and potentially the short takeoff and vertical landing variant of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). However, the Japanese say they have no plans to operate the JSF from either ship.

When Kaga commissions Japan will have four helicopter carriers. Along with Izumo, Japan has 18,300-ton Hyuga-class helicopter carriers already in commission.