Second Short Quiz - The New National Defense Strategy

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johnkarls
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Second Short Quiz - The New National Defense Strategy

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Second Short Quiz

1. Does the first paragraph of the U.S. Department of Defense 1/19/2018 press release accompanying the first National Defense Strategy in more than a decade say --

“The new National Defense Strategy announced today is aimed at restoring America’s competitive military advantage to deter Russia and China from challenging the United States, its allies or seeking to overturn the international order that has served so well since the end of World War II.”

2. Does this make sense in the light of MAD?

3. Isn’t MAD (the Cold War doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction) the policy that has worked so well for the more-than-half-a-century that Russia and China have had nuclear weapons?

4. In the case of Russia and its USSR, isn’t it true that the reason why MAD was so effective is that virtually all of the top Russian/Soviet leaders had agrarian roots as a result of which they loved the Russian workers and would not have risked their destruction in a nuclear holocaust?

5. Ditto China?

6. Is there any reason to think that the current leaders of Russia and China are any less rational than their nuclear-age predecessors?

7. BTW, doesn’t any world-class sailor (and former light-aircraft pilot) know, as a matter of “life and death,” that prevailing winds anywhere in the world come from the west?

8. And isn’t this fact an additional MAD deterrent for Russia and China because THEY ARE DOWNWIND from any nuclear blasts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East?

9. Does U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, in his introduction to the Unclassified Summary of the National Defense Strategy, broaden the focus from solely Russia and China by saying --

“China is a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea. Russia has violated the borders of nearby nations and pursues veto power over economic, diplomatic, and security decisions of its neighbors. As well, North Korea’s outlaw actions and reckless rhetoric continue despite United Nation’s censure and sanctions. Iran continues to sow violence and remains the most significant challenge to Middle East stability. Despite the defeat of ISIS’s physical caliphate, threats to stability remain as terrorist groups with long reach continue to murder the innocent and threaten peace broadly.”

10. Haven’t we studied on numerous occasions how in a 2/4/2004 television appearance, Abdul Qadeer Khan, the “father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb,” admitted that during the previous two decades he had secretly provided North Korea, Iran and Libya with the “know how” for producing nuclear weapons?

11. And haven’t we studied how Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have taught Iran and North Korea (and other wannabe nuclear powers such as the followers of Osama bin Laden) that they would have to be insane to give up their nuclear weapons programs?

12. Re Q-11, haven’t we studied how the break-up of the old Soviet Union left Ukraine with 1,900 Soviet multiple-warhead nuclear missiles and the Ukrainians were stupid enough to surrender them pursuant to a 12/5/1994 agreement of Bill Clinton (as U.S. President), John Major (as U.K. Prime Minister), and Boris Yeltsin (as President of Russia) TO GUARANTEE THE INDEPENDENCE AND INTEGRITY OF UKRAINE???

13. And didn’t President Barack Obama and the Russian Federation re-affirm on 12/4/2009 the 1994 obligations???

14. So wasn’t it NOT ONLY shameful on general principles BUT ALSO CATASTROPHIC FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION that President Obama DID NOT LIFT A FINGER in 2014 when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and effectively annexed the eastern half of Ukraine???

15. Re Q-11 and Libya, haven’t we studied how in 2003 Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein claimed to have nuclear weapons -- and not only the U.S. intelligence services but the intelligence services of many of our European allies (especially the U.K.) believed him???

16. And haven’t we studied how, IN REACTION TO THE U.S.-LED invasion of Saddam’s Iraq in early 2003, LIBYA’S COLONEL QADDAFI, in a panic, admitted that he had a nuclear weapons program and immediately offered to renounce it?

17. And haven’t we studied how Colonel Qaddafi’s panicked reaction caught the U.S. (and the world’s) intelligence services by surprise because they had no idea that, as mentioned in Q-10, “the father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb” had secretly provided Libya (as well as North Korea and Iran) with the “know how” for producing nuclear weapons?

18. So wasn’t it NOT ONLY shameful on general principles BUT ALSO CATASTROPHIC FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION how Secretary of State Hillary Clinton organized the U.S./British/French attack on Libya which would have been a “non-starter” without U.S. intelligence and air cover?

19. BTW did both the Arab League and the United Nations believe they had been swindled by Hillary’s U.N. Resolution that only approved a “no fly” prohibition for Qaddafi’s air force (which NEVER flew during the conflict), because Hillary proceeded to use American airpower to support the entire military campaign of the revolutionaries to topple Qaddafi?

20. So is it any surprise that the Qaddaf tribe in whose area virtually all Libyan oil exists as a result of which Colonel Muammar el Qaddafi (or, in other words, “Muammar of the Qaddafs”) was the leader of all Libya -- have reacted to Hillary’s policy of trying to destroy them by pledging allegiance to ISIS?

21. But vis-à-vis the lessons taught Iran and North Korea by Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton with their policies toward Ukraine and Libya that Iran and North Korea would have to be insane to give up their nuclear programs, is there any use in “crying over spilt milk”???

22. Wouldn’t it be more constructive to attempt to evaluate whether Iran’s Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un are rational so that “Mutual Assured Destruction” could be employed in their cases?

23. With respect to this question vis-à-vis Ali Khamenei, did we consider the Russian cable traffic during the Cuban missile crisis that became public following Glasnost?

24. Did those cables show that immediately after American spy satellites discovered the Russian missiles in Cuba, Fidel Castro cabled Nikita Khrushchev to say, in effect: “In the course of human events, it is sometimes necessary for a people to be willing to sacrifice themselves for the ‘greater good,’ as a result of which I am willing to sacrifice myself and the Cuban people by firing all of the nuclear missiles in Cuba at the U.S., following which it should be an easy matter for the Soviet Union to ‘mop up’”???

25. And did that immediately provoke Khrushchev to cable his underlings, both in Cuba and Russia, to say, in effect: “Who is this madman??? And who gave him control (de facto if not de jure) over MY MISSILES??? And get MY MISSILES the hell out of Cuba ASAP!!!”???

26. BTW, did supreme-negotiator Khrushchev get President Kennedy to remove American missiles from Turkey in exchange for the removal of Russian missiles from Cuba -- which missiles the post-Glasnost-available Russian cable traffic showed that Khrushchev would have removed anyway? And was there any shame in this for President Kennedy because, after all, he thought he was dealing with a real crisis?

27. But back to the main question -- how do we know that Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is any more rational than Fidel Castro??? Particularly in light of all the other aggression being perpetrated by him, and in light of all the U.N. resolutions at which he is “thumbing his nose”???

28. If the answer to the main question is that Supreme Ayatollah Khamenei is sane (and who knows whether that is true), isn’t the best Mutual-Assured-Destruction policy the de facto alliance that has formed between ISRAEL and Egypt and the “Gulf State Six” (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman) -- for which the nuclear deterrent would be ISRAELI NUCLEAR WEAPONS???

29. And since the answer to the main question vis-à-vis Kim Jong-un is that he and his regime are NOT SANE so that MAD would have a chance of succeeding, haven’t all of the foreign-policy experts agreed that the key is China which keeps the Kim regime propped up economically???

30. HOWEVER, why should we be trying to bribe the Koreans to behave, which has been such a policy failure repeatedly over the last 25 years???

31. AND WHY should we now be trying to bribe the Chinese with all kinds of economic “carrots” to bring North Korea “to heel” which must be a huge relief to the Chinese who thought President Trump was really going to do something about all the American jobs that have been exported to China???

32. WHY NOT simply do what the Israeli’s did???

33. After all, haven’t we studied on numerous occasions how Seymour Hersh’s “The Samson Option” records that Israel’s nuclear weapons saved it from annihilation (literally) in 1973???

34. And didn’t Seymour Hersh record that when Golda Meir’s cabinet agreed that they were “within 24 hours of annihilation” at which point they had always agreed to fire their 7 nuclear missiles, the only reason Henry Kissinger was willing to save Israel WAS THAT THEIR 7 NUCLEAR MISSILES WERE AIMED AT RUSSIAN CITIES in recognition that the Soviet Union was the cause of all the Arab-Israeli strife for a quarter century (and counting)???

35. So why doesn’t America simply “take a page” from the “Israeli play book” and announce to the Chinese that since they are responsible for North Korea, America and its allies will respond to any nuclear aggression from North Korea by nuking (pick a number) times as many Chinese as the North Koreans nuke???

36. And for anyone who would like to argue that such a policy would be insane, shouldn’t s/he have to address whether Mutual Assured Destruction in the Cold War was not EQUALLY INSANE, which is why everyone loved referring to it by its MAD acronym???

37. And building on the theme of the First Short Quiz that America’s foreign policy is based on the free use of the American military to protect the foreign investments of The Establishment resulting from The Establishment’s exportation of American jobs for the last 25 years --

37(A). Doesn’t the primary focus of the Defense Department’s new (for the first time in more than a decade) National Defense Strategy on Russia and China demonstrate a preoccupation with protecting foreign investments resulting from The Establishment’s exportation of American jobs for the last 25 years???

37(B). Doesn’t the apparent willingness to “give away the store” to China in terms of fighting for American jobs in order to get China to have its North Korean puppet utter, once again, some comforting words -- demonstrate the power of The Establishment to protect its Chinese investments that have resulted from exporting American jobs to China???

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NB: ISIS and Al Qaeda

The new National Defense Strategy also relegates ISIS and terrorism to a back seat.

In this regard, our 12/13/2017 meeting reviewed once more --

(1) Osama bin Laden’s fatwa to nuke 10 million Americans;

(2) Fatwas can not be revoked following the death of the person who issued it;

(3) Accordingly, nuking 10 million Americans is the solemn religious duty of every member of Al Qaeda, ISIS (formerly Al Qaeda in Iraq), and all of the other terrorist groups that have pledged allegiance to ISIS;

(4) The US Government has ignored the solution proposed by the Founding Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and vigorously supported by Sam Nunn (D-GA and former Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee), Richard Lugar (R-IN and former Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee), and the Chair and Co-Chair of The 9/11 Commission, as well as Tim Russert and Tom Brokaw -- to control all of the world’s fissile material the way we used to control gold at Fort Knox;

(5) Instead, the US Government instituted the FISA program to spy on terrorists; and

(6) The FISA program, which was due to expire on 12/31/2017, was/is threatening to destroy America à la George Orwell’s “1984.”

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It is respectfully submitted that Americans are more likely to be nuked as a result of Osama’s fatwa to nuke 10 million Americans -- than by Russia or China, or even by Iran or North Korea.

Particularly after the disgraceful way the FBI mishandled two tips regarding the 2/14/2018 Parkland FL school shooting!!!

After all, how can the FBI be trusted to handle any intelligence gathered by FISA-program spying against terrorists???

And as sad as are 17 dead Americans in Parkland FL due to FBI incompetence, it is not (yet) 10 MILLION dead Americans due to FBI incompetence!!!

Though we may never know how incompetent the FBI really is if the FISA-program does result in the establishment of Orwell’s “1984” in America!!!

HOWEVER, since we have gone over all of these issues so recently, it is respectfully suggested that we conserve time on 3/14/2018 by confining ourselves to the material covered in the First Short Quiz and Questions 1-37 of the Second Short Quiz.

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