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 40, 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

My Answers To NRA Questions

I’ve just answered 23 questions from the National Rifle Association (NRA). Five answers agree with the NRA; 17 disagree. All are here. 

John

Guard Against Sentinel

     Guard against Sentinel because nuclear blast, radiation and fall out will kill nearly everyone in Montana’s U.S. House District 2. If China or Russia fall for our strategic ruse of making 450 Sentinel silos a “sponge” to absorb 450 to 900 ground-bursting nuclear warheads essential to their first strike, Helenans may escape, but Billings families will suffer. Our red line against this happening is now.

     Guard against Sentinel because it allows our President only 10 minutes between warning of an incoming attack and the decision to launch. If the warning is disinformation or mistaken understanding, the launch of these missiles cannot be recalled.

    Guard against Sentinel because “nuclear weapons modernization” was initiated as part of a back room political deal between President Barrack O’Bama and the nuclear weapons industry in exchange for the nuclear weapons military industrial complex agreeing to not oppose his signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). 

     Guard against Sentinel, the largest construction project in U.S.Air Force History, not because it is so far over budget and will be even farther over budget, but because the $20 billion for 1250 warheads to eventually give these missiles each 3 warheads is tucked away in a different budget for the Energy Department.    

     Guard against Sentinel because the U.S. Air Force role in America’s nuclear war-fighting capability is its recallable bomber force and satellites operating in outer space. 

     Guard against Sentinel because the presence of ground-based launch facilities spread across Montana substantially reduces the area to consider for better use by an underground high-level nuclear waste facility.

     If elected I will not be in the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Caucus of congress persons interested in bringing the massive pork barrel spending of this project to ICBM states.

     

Stepping Back From Nuclear War

      

     My biggest lesson from being at the Pentagon in front of American Airlines Flight 77, just as it stopped: If that had been a nuclear weapon, all of the built environment of Washington DC, including Arlington National Cemetery, the statue of U.S. Marines raising our flag on Mount Sarabachi, the Kennedy Center, the Vietnam War and Korean War Memorials, the Lincoln Monument, the monuments to FDR and Thomas Jefferson and George Washington would have disappeared into glass.

     Seeing today how even Presidential candidates and their supporters make-up history or penalize teachers for teaching it, we should try to leave something of the wonderful tale of freedom we have tried to live with America. Today we are not only tasked with facing down the fascism of Trump and his followers, we are entering an extremely dangerous new arms race and risking direct military confrontation with Russia, while other nuclear conflicts loom around the world.

     The United States is expected to spend up to $2 trillion to “modernize” the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal including replacing the Minuteman with the Sentinel here in Montana. It’s time to step back from the business, consider how modern weapons are more likely to be used, and do what we can to back this shrinking world from the threshold of nuclear war. 

     Consequently, Montana voters, before they vote must understand that I support the efforts of a group of citizens and experts proposing “Back From the Brink,” a program to reduce nuclear risk. It calls on the United States to 1) declare it will never be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict and invite other nations to make similar pledges; 2) take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert; 3) end the president’s sole, unchecked authority to launch a nuclear attack; 4) cancel plans to “modernize” its nuclear arsenal; and 5) enter negotiations with other nuclear powers toward the verifiable global elimination of nuclear weapons.

     Because no one will win a nuclear war we need all of our leaders working to end the nuclear threat.

We’ve Been Played For Fools

   

     Netanyahu and his government are confirming what Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt and other Americans observed and publicly denounced in 1948:  Menachem Begin and his Likud friends, of whom Netanyahu is heir and follower, are “fascists”, “racists”, “criminals” and “terrorists” leading Israel to its “final destruction”. Now we poorly informed but empathetic, and usually trusting but easily manipulated, know in our hearts that the slaughter in Palestine is wrong and the present Israeli form of governing, unless radically changed by us as we once did Germany and Japan will never be open to a two-state solution. Until we can change Israel from a fascist stronghold to a constitutional Democracy, we must stop arming and coddling a modern monstrosity created with our help. To the same degree it turns out that Hamas must be destroyed, so must the Israeli counterpart described in the letter below be eliminated. This will require controlling and occupying both Israel and Palestine with a strong  NATO-United Nations Force. 

Letter to the New York Times: New Palestine Party: Visit of Menachem Begin and Aims of Political Movement Discussed To the Editors of the New York Times: Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine. The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents. Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions, public manifestations in Begin’s behalf, and the creation in Palestine of the impression that a large segment of America supports Fascist elements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to the record and objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement. The public avowals of Begin’s party are no guide whatever to its actual character. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future. Attack on Arab Village A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants240 men, women, and childrenand kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin. The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character and actions of the Freedom Party. Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model. During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute. The people of the Freedom Party have had no part in the constructive achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their much-publicized immigration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to bringing in Fascist compatriots. Discrepancies Seen The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a “Leader State” is the goal. In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to campaign against Begin’s efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin. The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism. ISIDORE ABRAMOWITZ, HANNAH ARENDT, ABRAHAM BRICK, RABBI JESSURUN CARDOZO, ALBERT EINSTEIN, HERMAN EISEN, M.D., HAYIM FINEMAN, M. GALLEN, M.D., H.H. HARRIS, ZELIG S. HARRIS, SIDNEY HOOK, FRED KARUSH, BRURIA KAUFMAN, IRMA L. LINDHEIM, NACHMAN MAISEL, SEYMOUR MELMAN, MYER D. MENDELSON, M.D., HARRY M. OSLINSKY, SAMUEL PITLICK, FRITZ ROHRLICH, LOUIS P. ROCKER, RUTH SAGIS, ITZHAK SANKOWSKY, I.J. SHOENBERG, SAMUEL SHUMAN, M. SINGER, IRMA WOLFE, STEFAN WOLFE. New York, Dec. 2, 1948