Bringing Our Troops Home

The United States has approximately 800 military bases spread out across the world in 70 countries which cost somewhere between $85 and $100 Billion dollars per year to operate and even more in a war zone. Some are quite large and others are merely just outposts but the cost is substantial and in many cases, no longer necessary.

Take the recent report that President Trump plans to withdraw 9,500 U.S. troops from Germany. They're upset about it because to the German government and the businesses located near the U.S. bases there, it's not about the loss of military protection, it's the loss of their consumer dollars.

When all those men and women in foreign bases get paid, they're gonna spend it in where they're stationed. That also includes the families of the service people living with them so the economic impact is greater than just the 9,500 troops.

Ultimately, we do not need a military base in Germany any longer. We don't need military bases in Italy, France, Afghanistan or Iraq either. If they speak ill of us, or want us out, we should leave and take our dough with us. Germany does not have a right or any claim to U.S. Taxpayer money. That money comes from the sweat of the brows of the U.S. citizenry and therefore should be spent with better discretion than keeps some other country's economy afloat.

Germany disparages President Trump while they kissed Barack Obama's ass and he was a waste product who did nothing, delivered nothing and with one exception, everything he's done has been reversed. Now we have someone in office with some backbone and they don't want to deal. So we don't have to deal either. See ya later, bye!

Stagnant Leadership

It is obvious that Angela Merkel has been around too long. Her tenure in office is approaching that of many Socialist Dictators. She has overseen a systemic stagnation where the only way she sees to solve a problem is to do more of the same. Instead of solving Germany's economic woes, she opens the borders. Instead of energy solutions, she doubles-down on more of the same; import, import, import. Both roads lead to a dead end.

Nothing is going to get any better over there until she is out of office. I thought letting in one million unmixable Muslims into the country would have been enough for someone to step to the fore to oust her but nope, they all just took it. That's when you know something is wrong. Perhaps they're just too trusting. Perhaps they've all swallowed that "my brother's keeper" bullshit.

Who knows? But it's not our fault and it's not our problem. If they don't like us, let's take our money and find something better to do with it than to keep Germany's drinking establishments afloat.

Germany's Need for Energy

Germany isn't nearly as Green as they make out to be. They need more oil. Germany's demand is the highest in the EU. They need more natural gas too. Germany is the world's 7th largest consumer of natural gas. I guess the solar panels and the wind turbines ain't cutting it.

So they make a deal with Russia. You remember Russia? The big Red Menace of Europe that our troops are in Germany to protect them from? Yes, THAT Russia. So now they are doing the Libertarian thing of turning a potential combatant into an economic ally. Nothing wrong with that. That is what we like to see.

But you don't need a foreign army to protect you from an economic ally. It's just that simple.

Hard Working Americans

Two weeks vacation. That says plenty. That's what most of us get. If you stay at a company for 5 years, you could get another week. After 10 years you may get 4 weeks off. A rare few places will offer 5 weeks after 15 years on the job. but that's the top end of it. For many small businesses, time off isn't even an option. We also have Over-Time. We all have worked over-time. That's extra. We get Time and a Half for each hour of overtime. For many, that's where the money for buying all our stupid stuff to make the world go around gets made. And have I mentioned all the taxes we pay?

Ultimately, we bust our BALLS for that money. We work longer hours than any industrialized nation. That includes Japan where the average Japanese worker will cram 8 hours of work into a 12 hour day such is the state of their economic incentive these days. The U.S. is the biggest economy because the people in the U.S. put in the most productive hours. There's no shortcut.

Bring Them All Home

It's time we empty out. Bring our troops home. Leave them in the tough spots like Taiwan and Japan but if there's no inherent danger like Germany, France and Italy, empty the place out. Out of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Time to draw down our forces and stop fighting everyone's battles for them AND being their gravy train. It's more than just wasteful.

These deals we make aren't forever. We have been told that we are not the world's police and we should take that to heart. We certainly shouldn't be. Perhaps these countries would appreciate us a little bit more if we weren't there.

After all, they can't miss us if we won't go away.

Obama, United Nations Renew Plans for Syrian Intervention

The Setup

First Angela Merkel is trotted out to say she is “Horrified” that there is actually a WAR going on in Syria! She has just now suddenly noticed that people are being killed there. Previously she just wondered why so many Syrians were coming to Germany. Now she seems to have realized why.

Let’s face it, Merkel is under the gun at home right now for her bizarre move to allow Germany to be overrun with unmixable Middle Eastern Visigoths. In part she needs a distraction so now she is shocked, shocked I say, that the fighting in Syria has produced what fighting usually produces: casualties and people on the move.

But is this sudden outrage really just Germany and Turkey acting out of concern for the welfare of the Syrian people?  

For one thing, the rhetoric is just insipid: “No one should excuse or show tolerance toward the Russian air attacks that amount to ethnic massacres….” So said Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

Who writes this stuff?

If Merkel and Davutoglu were really so concerned about the people of Aleppo not being massacred, they should be calling for the rebel forces there to surrender but wait, we don't hear them doing THAT. It's either surrender or fight to the death. That has usually been the custom, before the television age anyway.

So since when is trying to win a war an Ethnic Massacre? Yes, Syrians are getting killed, it’s fucking Syria! Who else would they be bombing in Aleppo, Bulgarians? Trying to prove that Russia is bombing Syrians because they are Syrian doesn't fly. They are also helping Syrians, apparently the "bad" Syrians, win the war. Turkey on the other hand, is backing the rebels with arms and other supplies. If they stopped doing THAT less people would be killed.

It's getting harder and harder to find a good guy in all this. In the U.S., we love the Good Guys. It's always good guys vs the bad guys. We get upset when we can't find a good guy. 

Now Ms. Merkel blames the Russians for their bombing runs despite the fact they've been doing this for five months. Can it be that her outrage and calls for the siege to be ended is really only due to the Assad forces being on the verge of final victory? This is an ominous sign.

There is no love lost between Turkey and Russia we know plus president Obama and the U.S. State Department will stop at nothing to undermine an Assad victory. It is beginning to look like they will go to their long standing trump card, the United Nations, for yet another attempt at legitimacy via coalition for their interventionist actions. But the United States is too far away and things appear to be too far along for this to actually work. 

The Syrian Civil War has gone badly for president Obama and the United States. 

 http://freedominanunfreeworld.blogspot.com/2015/09/united-states-of-obama-on-wrong-side-of.html

The Billions of dollars in arms that were “walked” into the country by the United States with the blessing and support of Saudi Arabia for ISIL to mount an offensive on the side of the anti-Assad rebels have not been enough to alter the inevitable outcome. In fact, the ISIL forces were so uncontrollably fanatical that they were attacking the rebels too and forcing them to fight on two fronts. Hardly a dependable alliance.

Iran and Hezbollah have also been instrumental in turning the tide for Assad forces to the point now that even the meager amount of ground troops that Saudi Arabia plans to send into the country will not be enough to stop them. Let’s hope the Saudis stick to fighting ISIL like they have stated publicly and do not draw themselves into bigger troubles than they have already.

A freshly funded post-embargo Iran poses a bigger threat than ever to the Saudi effort to take over Syria. Iran is now better positioned to fund a military contingent on a larger scale than they have in Syria now as well as landing an economic blow on the Arab Kingdom by entering the glutted oil market and continuing to drive the price of oil into the ground since 80% of their Gross National Product is based on oil. The Saudis have already been put under a great deal of pressure by the American fracking industry which produces oil at a competitive profit margin compared to what comes from overseas. There is also the added threat that if oil prices should jump, much of the dormant fracking installations could be brought back on-line quickly.  

Enter the UN

So a propaganda war to get a multi-national “peace” force to enter the fray will have to do.

This is why the United Nations has suddenly put forth a “report” that detainees by Assad forces are being “systematically” executed and that Prime Minister Davutoglu says that the rebel stronghold of Aleppo “is de facto under siege” and that “We are on the verge of a new human tragedy.” Perhaps he was referring to the “old” human tragedy of how Turkish soldiers have been killing the Kurds for as long as anyone can remember.

Nope, having the German and Turkish Prime Ministers dance like puppets on a string is just too neatly cued. These moves are a renewed and orchestrated attempt to keep Russia and Assad from final victory by either more direct armed intervention or the threat of an “International” Tribunal for War Crimes.  There are no more people left to arm so that’s out.

Will they try to indict Vladimir Putin? Have they even indicted Bashir Assad? Whatever they come up with you can be sure it will be ineffectual and all for show since the UN has never helped anybody but themselves in the long run and if they try to interfere and extend the war in Syria, even more people will die.

It always happens with the UN. They intervene, prolong the conflict and more people get killed than would have happened if one side actually won the fight. Look at the job they’ve done in Bosnia. They’ve kept that one going since 1995.  

The United Nations should keep to just warning North Korea that they better not shoot off another “Satellite” or NEXT TIME they will be in REAL trouble.  This will be your LAST warning, you hear me?!!

Heaven forbid anyone should actually win a war any more. War isn’t supposed to be fair. It’s intense, brutal, kills people and destroys things. Destruction does not build a people, a nation or an economy. It only lays waste to resources, countrysides and human destiny. 

That’s why we should think before we get involved in armed conflict. It's been all too easy when we remove the human element and the national sacrifice from warfare. If we couldn't do that then we wouldn’t have them but then again, the United States leads the world in war. We are the best since we've had the most practice. 

It's a terrible deal these people have gotten and as an American citizen disconnected from the people who call the shots, I feel powerless in the winds of the political forces at play but there really isn’t too much to choose from in this Lose/Lose game of a Syrian Conflict. 

On one side we have Bashir Assad, a person where no truth will ever describe any longer since he has fallen out of favor with the forces of the United States. Is he a brutal dictator? He’s pretty brutal right now and he certainly hasn't pulled any punches when it comes to keeping control of his country from the many outside influences. And did he really use poison gas? Although it is constantly talked about as a given in the U.S. Propaganda machine that passes for the National Press, it has not been proven. 

http://freedominanunfreeworld.blogspot.com/2013/09/un-indisputably-partisan-in-syria-report.html

It has been reported however that the rebels used gas and that so did ISIL. The truth may lie somewhere in between. Call it the Fog of War.

On the OTHER side of this equation is ISIL.  A group that cannot be governed, a group who it has been proven will send a 12 year old boy into a marketplace filled with civilians with a suicide vest on. A group that has cut off the heads of perhaps thousands of people who don’t worship Allah the way they do. A group that has “martyred” many outside recruits whose only mistake was wanting to join them. A group that has vowed to take over not only the Middle East but Europe and the United States as well. THIS is the group Barak Obama has chosen to back in the overthrow of Assad.

There are bad people in this world and there are WORSE people.

You pick one.

The NSA: Keeping America Safe from Angela Merkel

We can all sleep more soundly in our beds with the knowledge that the multi-billion dollars spent on the National Security Agency is well worth it so that Angela Merkel won’t be sneaking into the country to carry out her nefarious evil deeds upon an unsuspecting American public.

Our government’s most prominent anti-terrorist organization has taken the necessary steps to insure that Ms. Merkel , along with a reported 35 other world leaders, will not pose a terrorist threat to the United States.

Does anyone actually believe that the NSA is not doing the same thing to the American people? If millions of phone conversations in France, Spain, Brazil and Germany are being monitored, how could the government not monitor communications in the U.S.?  They are supposed to have a warrent here and they're supposed to have probable cause but that means nothing any more. We're told that the White House just didn't know about it, that's all.

And who believes that tight-ass of a president didn’t know about it? The same person who couldn’t delegate the reading of an 1-800 number on TV for his cratering Affordable Care Act and who has the last word on pushing the button on one of our Drones to bring death from above to Middle Eastern terrorists and civilians alike isn’t going to know? Sure he knows.

And yet, according to the administration, they never saw Bengazi coming. Let’s ask Ambassador Stevens about how safe he feels with the NSA monitoring phones and computers. Wait, you can’t, HE’S DEAD!

Let's ask U.S. Boarder Patrol Agent Brian Terry how safe he feels that the U.S. Department of Justice is doing all they can to protect our agents on the U.S. boarder with Mexico. Oh snap! You can't 'cause HE'S DEAD TOO!

What else will Obama and "his people" claim they don't know about?

The NSA and its sister groups the CIA and the FBI are all in place to do one thing first and foremost and that is to keep the people who are currently in power, in power.  This is why they’d rather tap millions of devices in Spain, Germany, Brazil and Russia than find out where all those guns they let walk across the Mexican border went to and who was behind it. Those people are to be protected.

Is protecting the American public really the NSA's top priority?

Who will protect us from them?

Perhaps this is why, as more and more people are growing dissatisfied in this country about the way the present administration is treating private enterprise and squelching individual freedom, that the national policing agencies have become more aggressive towards the citizenry. One need only look at the “non-government shutdown” where the National Parks Service and other “cop” agencies just closed parks and the businesses on them for the sole purpose to inflict pain upon the American Taxpayer who wanted to frequent them. An especially smart thing to do given the current state of the economy. But it wasn't about being smaret, they just wanted you to know that it’s THEY that control access and you…do not. Ditto concerning your privacy.

But it looks like the cat is out of the bag about the United States ambitious attempt at becoming the worlds new evil empire despite an 11th hour charge by the National Media outlets that are printing accounts of how other countries are spying on us also. Too late.

So once again it's the United States that proves the biggest threat to the United States, the biggest casualty being our credibility. How does it look now when we condemn hackers from around the world and it turns out we’re hacking almost every device on the plant, certainly every wireless device.

Thanks to Edward Snowden, everybody knows. The problem now is what are we going to do about it?

When Will Germany’s Debt Be Paid?

Sixty-eight years after the end of World War II, how much more time must pass before Germany can outlive it’s warring past?

If Greece had their way, that would be never. The Greeks just want Germany to just pay and pay. And to whom will the money go? Well, to Greece, of course!

Even though a settlement was reached in 1960, the now flat busted, irresponsible and child-like people of Greece want Germany to pay up again. This time they want 160 Million Euros to make amends. This fabulous amount of money is, coincidentally, roughly the amount Greece is in the hole financially for their wanton, frivolous and corrupt collective behavior. Well how about that!?

This is what Germany gets for trying to help bail out Greece in the first place. That’ll teach them. No good deed goes unpunished.

How come Greece doesn’t go after Italy for money? After all, they fought Italy in the war too. Oh, that’s right I forgot, Italy’s broke too. Can’t get blood out of a stone!

And what if Germany did pay up and Greece got the money? They would only piss it away again without a second thought. Not a debt would be paid, not a lesson would be learned. Does anyone believe otherwise? Don't be a sucker.

Greece’s public sector bloat is the stuff of public labor union leftist LEGEND. At one time public sector wages accounted for 27% of all government expenditures. I'm sure that figure did not include the pension liability either. Education and healthcare is also publicly funded.  That's a lot of green being sucked out of the economy annually without the production to back it up.

Even throughout the last four years of austerity, the Greek government has resisted any cuts to its public sector while its taxpaying private enterprises took the brunt of cuts and layoffs. They have not taken one voluntary step in the right direction for their own nation. That would be called "taking responsibility for ones actions" and there's too little of that around the world these days.

And the Greeks really know how to sweet talk a nation that has something they don’t IE: Money. The Greeks have been over the top in their rhetoric and public scorn aimed at Germany and its role in the bailout and the imposition of austerity measures. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been parodied and insulted in numerous ways by politician and pedestrian alike for the crime of leading a country that remains industrious and prosperous while they, the Greeks, are not and haven’t been for some time.

Greece is what you get when you have people depend on big government for their daily bread. Greece is, sadly, a country that only has history to look towards to see how proud they used to be.

All this must be seriously tiresome to the German people if they’re paying attention to this at all. How many times can Germany’s 20 something’s, two generations removed from the war, have to listen to the Nazi and Hitler references, the continued drumbeat of past atrocities and blame for something they only have read in history books and heard told by old timers? I am not without empathy for their position since I have never owned a slave or oppressed an indian but continue to hear about it like thos things were my fault. Why should the German citizenry have to put up with this crap especially from jealous grasping spendthrifts like the Greeks?

It is asking a lot of the German taxpayer to fund yet another bailout of people who don’t care an nth about them and won’t change their ways? Hmmm, that sounds really familiar…

If it were up to me, I’d forget about giving Greece any more money. They have no intention of paying what they've already received back anyway so it’s like throwing money into the street. Let the industrious nations of the world not drown themselves attempting to rescue people who don’t know enough to come in from the rain. They've spent plenty of money already.

In other words, tell Greece to blow. Let them solve their own problems!