Nuclear Arms Control

     

Thank you, Air Force men and women who have defended us from nuclear war with Minuteman missiles.  With the advent of agile weapons, threat alliances and ignored arms control treaties, we’ve moved to a more complex war-fighting environment. 

     Russia’s Putin no longer holds himself to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty’s 700 deployed ICBMs/SLBMs, 1,550 warheads and 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers, and already possessed the quick capability for numbers enticing enough to try overwhelming our 450 Minutemen-intended to absorb his first strike. When we walked away from the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, he asked “if we could count.” On behalf of eastern Montanans, I can count. 

     Putin’s building more submarines equipped with nuclear missiles. Russia’s and China’s “alliance without bounds, and side-deals with North Korea already generate plentiful conventional and chemical weapons against Ukraine. China’s new strategic rocket capability on Hainan Island will employ 10,000 Russians experts. Their combined weaponry has become faster and more agile than ours. We are in a new nuclear arms race. 

     I’m against Montana’s House District 2 continuing to serve as a nuclear attack sponge. I hope Secretary of Defense Austen will not fund the critically over-budget $130 billion Sentinel Program. We need a new and broader arms control treaty. Everyone loses a nuclear war.

      

Your Super Power

     Monsignor James H. O'Neill of Carroll College (1915-1926) in Helena, Montana, while serving as the Chaplain for General Patton’s Third Army, was the author of General Patton’s “Weather Prayer.” After World War II, Father O’Neil wrote about Training Letter 5, which he published at Patton’s direction. two days before Hitler’s SS formations surprise attacked U.S forces in what came to be known as “the Battle of the Bulge.” As you read what O’Neil wrote, think about the reality of our personal power not coming from guns or money. 

      O’Neil wrote: “We had about 486 chaplains in the Third Army at that time, representing 32 denominations. Once the Third Army had become operational, my mode of contact with the chaplains had been chiefly through Training Letters issued from time to time to the Chaplains in the four corps and the 22 to 26 divisions comprising the Third Army. Patton had said to me, “If we all pray, it will be like what Dr. Carrel said [the allusion was to a press quote some days previously when Dr. Alexis Carrel, one of the foremost scientists, described prayer "as one of the most powerful forms of energy man can generate"], it will be like plugging in on a current whose source is in Heaven. I believe that prayer completes that circuit. It is power.’
     “With that the General arose from his chair, a sign that the interview was ended. I returned to my field desk, typed Training Letter No. 5 while the "copy" was "hot," touching on some or all of the General's reverie on Prayer, and after staff processing, presented it to General Patton on the next day. The General read it and without change directed that it be circulated not only to the 486 chaplains, but to every organization commander down to and including the regimental level. Three thousand two hundred copies were distributed to every unit in the Third Army over my signature as Third Army Chaplain. Strictly speaking, it was the Army Commander's letter, not mine. Due to the fact that the order came directly from General Patton, distribution was completed on December 11 and 12 in advance of its date line, December 14, 1944. Titled ‘Training Letter No. 5,’ with the salutary ‘Chaplains of the Third Army,’ the letter continued: ‘At this stage of the operations I would call upon the chaplains and the men of the Third United States Army to focus their attention on the importance of prayer.
   ‘Our glorious march from the Normandy Beach across France to where we stand, before and beyond the Siegfried Line, with the wreckage of the German Army behind us should convince the most skeptical soldier that God has ridden with our banner. Pestilence and famine have not touched us. We have continued in unity of purpose. We have had no quitters; and our leadership has been masterful. The Third Army has no roster of Retreats. None of Defeats. We have no memory of a lost battle to hand on to our children from this great campaign.
     ‘But we are not stopping at the Siegfried Line. Tough days may be ahead of us before we eat our rations in the Chancellery of the Deutsches Reich.
     ‘As chaplains it is our business to pray. We preach its importance. We urge its practice. But the time is now to intensify our faith in prayer, not alone with ourselves, but with every believing man, Protestant, Catholic, Jew, or Christian in the ranks of the Third United States Army.
     ‘Those who pray do more for the world than those who fight; and if the world goes from bad to worse, it is because there are more battles than prayers._’Hands lifted up,' said Bosuet, 'smash more battalions than hands that strike.' Gideon of Bible fame was least in his father's house. He came from Israel's smallest tribe. But he was a mighty man of valor. His strength lay not in his military might, but in his recognition of God's proper claims upon his life. He reduced his Army from thirty-two thousand to three hundred men lest the people of Israel would think that their valor had saved them. We have no intention to reduce our vast striking force. But we must urge, instruct, and indoctrinate every fighting man to pray as well as fight. In Gideon's day, and in our own, spiritually alert minorities carry the burdens and bring the victories.
    ‘Urge all of your men to pray, not alone in church, but everywhere. Pray when driving. Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others. Pray by night and pray by day. Pray for the cessation of immoderate rains, for good weather for Battle. Pray for the defeat of our wicked enemy whose banner is injustice and whose good is oppression. Pray for victory. Pray for our Army, and Pray for Peace.
     ‘We must march together, all out for God. The soldier who 'cracks up' does not need sympathy or comfort as much as he needs strength. We are not trying to make the best of these days. It is our job to make the most of them. Now is not the time to follow God from 'afar off.' This Army needs the assurance and the faith that God is with us. With prayer, we cannot fail.
      ‘Be assured that this message on prayer has the approval, the encouragement, and the enthusiastic support of the Third United States Army Commander.
    ‘With every good wish to each of you for a very Happy Christmas, and my personal congratulations for your splendid and courageous work since landing on the beach, I am," etc., etc., signed The Third Army Commander.’
    “The timing of the Prayer story is important: let us rearrange the dates: the ‘Prayer Conference’ with General Patton was 8 December; the 664th Engineer Topographical Company, at the order of Colonel David H. Tulley, C.E., Assistant to the Third Army Engineer, working night and day reproduced 250,000 copies of the Prayer Card; the Adjutant General, Colonel Robert S. Cummings, supervised the distribution of both the Prayer Cards and Training Letter No. 5 to reach the troops by December 12-14. The (German) breakthrough was on December 16 in the First Army Zone when the Germans crept out of the Schnee Eifel Forest in the midst of heavy rains, thick fogs, and swirling ground mists that muffled sound, blotted out the sun, and reduced visibility to a few yards. The few divisions on the Luxembourg frontier were surprised and brushed aside. They found it hard to fight an enemy they could neither see nor hear. For three days it looked to the jubilant Nazis as if their desperate gamble would succeed. They had achieved compete surprise. Their Sixth Panzer Army, rejuvenated in secret after its debacle in France, seared through the Ardennes like a hot knife through butter. The First Army's VIII Corps was holding this area with three infantry divisions (one of them new and in the line only a few days) thinly disposed over an 88-mile front and with one armored division far to the rear, in reserve. The VIII Corps had been in the sector for months. It was considered a semi-rest area and outside of a little patrolling was wholly an inactive position.
   “When the blow struck the VIII Corps fought with imperishable heroism. The Germans were slowed down but the Corps was too shattered to stop them with its remnants. Meanwhile, to the north, the Fifth Panzer Army was slugging through another powerful prong along the vulnerable boundary between the VIII and VI Corps. Had the bad weather continued there is no telling how far the Germans might have advanced. On the 19th of December, the Third Army turned from East to North to meet the attack. As General Patton rushed his divisions north from the Saar Valley to the relief of the beleaguered Bastogne, the prayer was answered. On December 20, to the consternation of the Germans and the delight of the American forecasters who were equally surprised at the turn-about-the rains and the fogs ceased. For the better part of a week came bright clear skies and perfect flying weather. Our planes came over by tens, hundreds, and thousands. They knocked out hundreds of tanks, killed thousands of enemy troops in the Bastogne salient, and harried the enemy as he valiantly tried to bring up reinforcements. The 101st Airborne, with the 4th, 9th, and 10th Armored Divisions, which saved Bastogne, and other divisions which assisted so valiantly in driving the Germans home, will testify to the great support rendered by our air forces. General Patton prayed for fair weather for Battle. He got it.
     “It was late in January of 1945 when I saw the Army Commander again. This was in the city of Luxembourg. He stood directly in front of me, smiled: "Well, Padre, our prayers worked. I knew they would." Then he cracked me on the side of my steel helmet with his riding crop. That was his way of saying, "Well done."

Note: This recollection appeared as a government document in 1950. At the time it appeared in The Review of the News, October 6, 1971, Msgr. O'Neill was a retired Brigadier General living in Pueblo, Colorado. Chaplain O’Neill died April 17, 1980 at the age of 80.  Source: The George Patton Jr. Society

No Term Limits Pledge

(Earth Day)   Today Mr. Howie Rich, Chair of U.S. Term Limits and Club for Growth, asked John B Driscoll, Democrat Candidate for Montana’s U.S. House District MT2, to sign a pledge to support amending the U.S. Constitution, “which will take years to get proposed and ratified. This is about bringing fairness back to our elections. As you know the campaign finance deck is stacked in favor of incumbents. The odds of unseating an incumbent if you’ve got less than $1 million in the bank are 1 in 146.” Rich said, “Term limits is a giant improvement toward campaign finance reform. Open seats work to level the playing field on money. No incumbent means no incumbent fundraising advantage. A three-term limit really opens the door for new voices to emerge.”

     “Polling for congressional term limits is off the charts and candidates who make this an election issue do very well. Per a recent McLaughlin poll, 82-9% support term limits, Dem-80%, Ind-83%, Rep-84%.”

     Driscoll respectfully responded: “I do not support term limits. In my view folks have to stop giving their power to money and speak about who should be in their last term with their vote. It’s why I am seriously running for high office without raising or spending the $5,000 minimum threshold for filing with the Federal Elections Commission or with the U.S. House of Representatives.”
     So far, Driscoll has spent $128.55 plus a $1,740 filing fee and is feeling fine about his campaign.”

The Storm of a Lifetime

     While attending this year’s Montana Writers’ Rodeo to improve my craftsmanship, I came to realize that my initial determination to spend five years writing this small book, investigating the political-religious intrigue quieting Archbishop Hunthausen, came from my 9/11 experience at the Pentagon. Nine years ago I had made only 100 copies and sent most to where the title says. At the writers’ conference I realized that anyone motivated to take action for our communities in our present political-religious environment, including intending to vote, should also read it. 

     My investigative report explores the facts surrounding the Vatican's Apostolic Visitation to the Archdiocese of Seattle in late 1983, following Archbishop Raymond G. Hunthausen's effective advocacy of non-violent opposition to nuclear weapons, especially the basing of Trident nuclear missile-carrying submarines at Bangor, Washington, on the Hood Canal in Puget Sound. You’ll find information from interviews of persons who were involved, research from archives at Georgetown University, Marquette University, University of Texas and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, as well as results of Freedom of Information/Privacy Act requests to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Naval Investigative Service. Appendices in the book present the full text of Archbishop Hunthausen's speech to the Pacific Lutheran Convention in Tacoma, Washington, full text of U.S. President Ronald Reagan's last speech, given in New York City to the Catholic Knights of Malta, full text of U.S. Secretary of Navy John F. Lehman's speech condemning non-violent resistance to nuclear weaponry, full text of U.S. President Harry Truman's speech dedicating the Temple of the Four Chaplains, full text of the FBI's Special Investigation of Trident Program procurement czar World War II Ace fighter pilot Melvyn R. Paisley, and full text of the obituary of Archbishop Jean Jadot, the Belgian prelate responsible for helping Pope Paul VI choose most of the members of the U.S. Catholic hierarchy, including Hunthausen, responsible for writing the U.S. Bishops' Pastoral Letter on War and Peace. Under great pressure from the Reagan Administration the U.S. Bishops refused to permit deterrence as a sufficiently moral reason for building nuclear weapons, unless the numbers of those warheads are being reduced.

Milosovec, Now Netanyahu!

     

      Just as we should have had a UN Security Council Resolution for NATO forces to operate for 78 days in Kosovo, protecting Kosovars from Serbian ethnic cleansing of more than 12,000 Albanians, we need a UN Security Council Resolution to force Netanyahu and the Israeli Defense Force back into Israel. More than 37,000 dead Palestinians, most of them non-combatants, are enough. Besides protecting non-combatants as we did in Kosovo, we’ll be stopping the spread of war into Egypt’s Sinai. 

Kosovo, a region with a dominantly ethnic Albanian population located in the southern part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, was an autonomous province within Serbia, the dominant political entity within Yugoslavia. By the early 1990’s Serbian leader Slobodan Milosovec rose to power by pursuing policies that led to the marginalization and repression of the ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo, which caused emergence of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). To secure more rights for Kosovo Albanians through armed resistance, the KLA’s guerrilla warfare against Serbian security forces fed a growing cycle of violence and reprisal. By 1998 there had been substantial human rights violations and atrocities against Albanians. Diplomatic efforts and negotiations failed, causing NATO to launch Operation Allied Force in March 1999. The objective was to protect ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and end the violence. The operation involved a sustained air campaign targeting Serbian military installations, infrastructure and command centers, to degrade Serbia’s combat capability and force Milosovec to negotiate a settlement.

The United States deployed substantial military force to Kosovo. It consisted of ground troops, naval assets, and air power. U.S. ground forces were deployed as part of the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR). These U.S.Army troops were responsible for maintaining security and stability in the region, and returning displaced Albanians to their homes. The U.S. Navy provided logistical support and conducted an arms embargo. The U.S. Air Force played the pivotal role with significant numbers of bombers, fighter jets, and surveillance aircraft. The use of precision-guided munitions and advanced surveillance proved effective in achieving NATO objectives. However, the operation showed the limits of air power alone in resolving complex conflicts and underlined the need for comprehensive strategies that combine military, diplomatic, and humanitarian efforts. There needs to be clear objectives, robust planning, and international cooperation to achieve success. 

There were significant challenges rebuilding Kosovo, with the United Nations assuming control over the region, overseeing efforts to rebuild the infrastructure, establish democratic institutions, and foster inter-ethnic reconciliation.

The biggest criticism of Operation Allied Force was Russia’s argument by Putin that NATO’s intervention violated international law, by being conducted without explicit authorization from the United Nations Security Council. Putin later used that Kosovo action as his precedent for sending his own forces into the Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

The U.S. under President Biden still has the capability to secure an authorization from the UN Security Council and have a robust NATO force, assisted by Russian Forces, establish a protective ring around the Palestinians in Southern Gaza as the first phase of rebuilding Palestine under the auspices of the United Nations. This NATO-Russia approach offers a gradual way out of the ongoing confrontation between NATO, seen by Russia as offensively-minded, and a Russia that has failed in its past attempt to work with NATO. Importantly, this would be the first post-Cold War step in the functional evolution of a robust peacekeeping capability for the United Nations. 

Just as it pained the hearts of Americans, especially Serbian Americans, to have U.S forces kill Serbs in order to rein in a monster like Milosovec, our hearts will ache for the deaths of Israelis and Israeli Americans, unwilling or unable to end the wasteful squalor of a racist crook like Netanyahu. However, with regard to Netanyahu instead of air strikes, we have the option of no longer supplying Netanyahu’s forces with weapons and ammunition, a course of action we should do.

Ghost Rider

This weekend I had to drive over 700 miles on my donut spare tire (front left) after a blowout between Big Horn and Hysham. Made my 1:00 and 1:30 appointments in Miles City, and the 5:00 PM Spring Fling at Glendive, then back to Miles City where I slept on the ground under the stars at Fort Kehoe. Meadowlarks woke me up for sure, which was grand, but every move was a pain after changing that tire the day before. I had to break off two of the five lug bolts. If truth be told I felt as chipper as that 201 years old Tibetian Monk they just found in the Himalayas and half as spry. 

Couldn’t replace it at Miles City Saturday because Point S was just closing at 1 PM as I got there. Couldn’t replace it at Walmart in Miles City on Sunday because they only had one, and all four need replacing for All Wheel Drive (AWD), and couldn’t replace it at COSCO in Billings because the two lugs I sheared off were next to each other and their corporate liability policy won’t let them replace two adjacent. It was a shame because they had the tires and would have had me out of there in a heartbeat. So I tootled back to Helena much slower than the 80-90 mph Sunday traffic that hurtled around me. Made it home by 5:30 PM.

I thought I saw ghost riders in the clouds overhead and I definitely saw a young white bronc pawing the sky. https://youtu.be/0Fhy8o7ufi8

Why Some Shouldn’t Vote For Me

 (Glendive) Last night Democrat Congressional Candidate, John B Driscoll gave three reasons for some to not vote for him. If elected from Montana’s Eastern District, he intends to re-establish Roe vs Wade standards as a national statute, he will not approve the U.S. Air Force’ appropriation for modernizing nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, and he will support small modular reactors for helping to satisfy skyrocketing electricity generation and transmission requirements. “We’ve no business imposing religious preferences on other Americans. The new Sentinel missile is intended to attract and absorb incoming warheads that will kill, by blast, radiation and fallout, most persons in House District 2. Climate Change has been a credible threat ever since the National Academies of Sciences identified global warming over 40 years ago.”

He wants Montanans to know his intentions up front so, if they do send him to Congress, he won’t be wasting time looking over his shoulder.

Driscoll spoke in the Monsignor Thomas Hennessy Knights of Columbus Hall, along with the three other Democrat congressional candidates appearing at The Spring Fling, a dinner and auction sponsored by the Dawson County Democrats