Was Germanwings Flight 9525 Brought Down By Putin? And If So, What Is His Next Move?

Let's remember, that there have been published reports about a theory that Putin was behind the disappearance of flight MH370.

Expert Jeff Wise links Vladimir Putin to MH370 disaster

Wise’s theory is that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the hijacking of the Boeing 777 and landed it in Kazakhstan.

One reason Putin may have wanted to steal the plane would be to hurt the West and its allies, Wise wrote, particularly because the US had imposed punitive sanctions on Russia the day before MH370 disappeared.

And.......
Let's remember that at this same time Putin was annexing The Crimea.
A beautiful "Wag the dog" scenario.

Ukraine Crisis Timeline - BBC

February 2014
27-28 February: Pro-Russian gunmen seize key buildings in the Crimean capital, Simferopol. Unidentified gunmen in combat uniforms appear outside Crimea's main airports.
1 March: Russia's parliament approves President Vladimir Putin's request to use force in Ukraine to protect Russian interests.

 A week later MH370 disappears.

Ya ya.... I know.... kind of a crazy theory, but for me? I would be watching Putin and Russia Very closely.

Russia threatens to aim nuclear missiles at Denmark ships if it joins NATO shield

In an interview in the newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the Russian ambassador to Denmark, Mikhail Vanin, said he did not think Danes fully understood the consequences of joining the program.

"If that happens, Danish warships will be targets for Russian nuclear missiles," Vanin told the newspaper.

The Tide of War Against Extreme Islam Turns as Extremists go on the Offensive in Paris.

Je suis un Charlie

It didn't take long, and we are not allowed to act surprised. In fact it was predicted. It just is rather stunning to see how quickly it happened, but the old adage about "we can fight them there, or we'll have to fight them here" is quickly becoming true.

Barely two weeks after NATO ceremoniously surrendered Afghanistan to an uncertain fate, Jihadis successfully attacked a target they had previously and publicly threatened with revenge for publishing cartoons they deemed offensive to their Mohamed. A publication called "Charlie Hebdo".

Whether the timing is intentional or coincidental, the message or at least the optics are clear. Jihad has been victorious at home, and now they are on the march.

This attack was not a 'lone wolf' attack. It can't be chalked up to a lone unstable religious nut who used Jihad as an excuse to act crazy and violently. On the contrary, this attack appears to have been by well trained and possibly veteran Jihadi soldiers.

Gunmen in Charlie Hebdo Attack in Paris Likely 'Well Trained,' Experts Say

“They carried out the operation in a very calm, controlled way,” said Richard Clarke, former White House counter-terrorism advisor and current ABC News consultant. “They appear to have fire discipline, not spraying bullets everywhere. They were people who did not look like they were wild, on some kind of spree, but who were accomplishing a military operation.” 

When will the president learn that just because he doesn't want to fight the Jihadis, the Jihadis do in fact want to fight him, and the western culture.

If this was in fact an attack by citizens of Europe or the United States or Canada, who were trained on the battlefield by, oh, say, ISIS and have now returned to execute terror attacks, then there is nothing preventing them from getting on an airplane to the United States to come here and do the samething.

Good thing our cowardly mealy mouthed media outlets have chosen to censor themselves by not showing the graphic cartoons that upset the Jihadis so much. How courageous.

Boots on the ground, as predicted.

Yet another example of this presidents tin ear, and inability to correctly form strategic foreign policy that is in the best interest of the United States. It is truly amazing that 6 years into his presidency he is still a neophyte and is still the naive newbie on the world stage. One would have thought that 6 years of on the job training would have taught him something, but I guess not. Some people never learn. It was inevitable that the U.S. would be called upon to fight ISIS. And, as reported here (I'm Back! and in other news... There will be boots on the ground!). There will be boots on the ground.

Obama to Send 1,500 More Troops to Assist Iraq 

President Obama has authorized the deployment of an additional 1,500 American troops to Iraq in the coming months, doubling the number of Americans meant to train and advise Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

The trainers and advisers are to help Iraqis and Kurds as they plan a major offensive expected next spring against Islamic State fighters who have poured into Iraq from Syria.

Pentagon officials said Friday that military advisers would establish training sites across Iraq in a significant expansion of the American military campaign in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State. A Defense Department official said that a number of military personnel would deploy specifically to Anbar Province, the Sunni stronghold in western Iraq

And as my sources say, they DO plan to be shot at. Whether they make incursions into Syria from Iraq, or just plan to raise holy hell on the Iraq side of the border in order to draw resources away from the Turkish border remains unanswered at this time.

What hasn't been queried yet is the Putin factor. How will Vlad react to U.S. forces making incursions into Syria? If that is seen as an additional threat to his friend Assad, what will the reaction be? Russia is already increasing the pressure in eastern Ukraine, and stepping up provocative air activity in western Europe.

NATO Tracks Large-Scale Russia Air Activity in Europe - WSJ

Russian military aircraft conducted aerial maneuvers around Europe this week on a scale seldom seen since the end of the Cold War, prompting NATO jets to scramble in another sign of how raw East-West relations have grown.

Ukraine accuses Russia of sending dozens of tanks into its territory - CNN

Amid rising tensions and fresh violence, Ukrainian authorities on Friday accused Russia of sending dozens of its military vehicles into its territory -- though the Kremlin have knocked down such reports as unfounded and "provocative." 

And what is Turkey's reaction if the U.S. is only seen to be helping the Kurds at the Turkish border and not pushing on the Assad regime?

It's complicated, I know. But now is not the time for indecision or inaction. Is our President up to the task?

I'm Back! and in other news... There will be boots on the ground!

After a long but needed sabbatical I'm back to blog about our upside down world. Back to compare and contrast historical events with current events. Back to connect the dots between logic and the crazy upside down propaganda that is constantly spewed by the politicians and aided by state run media.

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News Flash.....

There will be boots on the ground

I spoke with a Military mom yesterday. Her son is being deployed to Iraq to fight ISIS in 4 to 8 weeks. Despite what the liar in chief says everyday, and what the media doesn't question, there will be a deployment of  U.S. army regulars to combat ISIS.

I have no details as to the official mission, whether they will be called advisers, or if they will be called a security detail, but they do expect to be shot at. This particular Mom had a strong feeling she wasn't going to see her son again. While her son has been in the military since 2003, has served in theater in Afghanistan and Iraq, this time she just has that feeling......

All I could do to console was remind her that at least her son was getting the opportunity to do what he signed up to do. Unlike some of his brethren who volunteered to join the armed forces so they could learn to shoot weapons, fight terrorists, and maybe get blown up or shot to death by young children in the process. Many of his comrades are being deployed to West Africa so that they might be killed by Ebola. No one signed up for that!

Outlandish you say? Then explain to me why volunteer medical workers who work with the dead and dying Ebola victims don't have to be quarantined on there return from the region, but the volunteer military who didn't sign up to work with 'Doctor's without Borders' (Medcin sans Frontier) must be quarantined for the 21 day period of endangerment?

Medical professionals are expected to follow the Hippocratic oath. "Do no Harm". The military mission is quite the opposite. Is this not a major misallocation of resources? Does anyone think this sounds fair? Probably a question for a separate post. In fact I think it will be.

Right, Wing-Nut!: Redefining "Civility" Down...

Right, Wing-Nut!: Redefining "Civility" Down...

So "civility", like so many words in the Age of Obama, has been redefined, to mean you are forbidden to speak ill of of me, but I am free to say the most horrible, hateful, and untrue things about you that my imagination can conjure up.

My thoughts exactly!

If you are an actual thug, who actually uses violence to advance your cause you can use violent rhetoric as long as your cause is favored by the left. 

"War!"
"We like a good fight!"
"Let's take these sons of bitches out!"
"President Obama! This is your Army!"

But if you're merely a fed up citizen who is concerned about deficit spending that has no end in sight then don't even think of using words like

"Target"
"Lock and load"

You'll make Nancy Pelosi and Patches Kennedy cry.

The Audacity of Hate

Where are the Cries for Civility?

 

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Libya is in our National Disinterest

Many were waiting with bated breath for President Obama's speech last night. Dying to hear what the carefully considered, nuanced, multinational logic would be for sending American forces to Libya.

And it came down to this...

Qaddafi declared that he would show "no mercy" to his own people. He compared them to rats, and threatened to go door to door to inflict punishment. In the past, we had seen him hang civilians in the streets, and kill over a thousand people in a single day. Now, we saw regime forces on the outskirts of the city. We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi — a city nearly the size of Charlotte — could suffer a massacre - it was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that happen.

Does our law professor president understand that his rationale is flawed? Where is the school girl cheerleader clique ridicule that was so often tossed at George W Bush for his pronunciation of the word "nuclear"? When George Bush misspoke it was considered a direct reflection of his lack of intelligence.

But I don't think this is the case here. Our law professor super genius president surely knows that just because something is not in your national interest necessarily means that it is in your national interest. These are not positions or states that are mutually exclusive. No, this was what he and his elitist administration considered a clever trick of wordsmith meant to convince their logic lacking lackeys that what the president was doing in Libya is in America's best interest. So this is not a reflection on the presidents intellect, but it is a reflection of what he thinks about the "we're so smart and superior that we make fun of the way people pronounce the word 'nuclear'" left. The "I get my news from John Stewart" crowd does not like to do their own logic math, and they sure don't know what mutually exclusive means, so you have nothing to worry about Mr. President. In fact you probably accomplished your goal of appeasing the violently anti-war wing of your party by convincing them that we had to go to Libya.

But for the rest of us the President did not come anywhere close to making a convincing argument that didn't leave more questions than it answered. Will the U.S. come to the aid of any country where a dictator might "kill over a thousand people in a single day"? or does it only matter if they produce a rare type of crude used by the continentals?

Our most effective alliance, NATO, has taken command of the enforcement of the arms embargo and No Fly Zone...

So what? We run NATO! The supreme commander of NATO is always an American! It's still 90% U.S. blood and treasure that will be doing the heavy lifting. Here is another example of the president pulling the wool over the eyes of his easy amused admirers. This is the "I am not" Bush pose. I do not act in the unilateral way that George W. Bush did. Sorry Charlie. Fact: more countries were involved in the invasion of Iraq than are involved with the Libya operation. But it's easier for the left to sleep at night by believing what they want to believe.

Finally! A Real Blood for Oil War - Libya

And no one cares.

In 2003 thousands of war protesters turned out to decry a war they proclaimed was a war for oil, even though it was not.

Cities jammed in worldwide protest of war in Iraq

Demonstrators converged near the United Nations to protest the possible war in just one of the more than 600 anti-war rallies around the globe. Organizers estimated the crowd at more than 375,000, but Police Commissioner Ray Kelly estimated turnout at 100,000. 

Besides protests in large cities such as Chicago, Illinois; and Los Angeles, California; rallies were held across the United States in smaller towns such as Gainesville, Georgia; Macomb, Illinois; and Juneau, Alaska, according to the anti-war group United for Peace and Justice.

 Where are these people now? And if you go to the United for Peace website, not a mention of Libya. They do however have call to actions for Egypt though.

In New York on Saturday, a giant puppet depicting President Bush holding buckets of blood and oil towered over the cheering crowd that was pressed against police barricades near U.N. headquarters.

Even though oil had nothing to do with the U.S. going into Iraq, you just can't let the truth get in the way of a good slogan. The U.S. didn't get any more oil by going to Iraq, and we are not getting it for cheaper. That's for sure!

This time, it is all about the oil. France, UK, and Italy are addicted to the special 'light sweet' crude brand of oil that Libya produces, and it is rather rare.

West Shuns Libyan Crude

Part of the problem for markets is that Libyan oil is light and sweet—low in density and levels of sulfur—and is hard to replace. Light, sweet crude is more desirable as it yields more gasoline and easy to process.

Italy, France, China, Germany and Spain are the largest buyers of Libyan oil, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Some refineries in those nations will have to search for new sources of supply to make up for the lost Libyan crude, which could send oil prices higher in other markets.

Even if the bulk of the lost Libyan oil is made up by production in Saudi Arabia, some refineries can only process light sweet crude and have to turn to a handful of other countries for supplies, including Nigeria and Algeria, which are themselves the subject of some popular unrest.

Libya is also closely located near it's customers and so transportation cost are lower than getting it from anywhere else. So, now you know why France is leading the charge. They are not dithering around. While Anti-war Obama says we're just protecting the civilians and we are not there for regime change, France is saying it is prepared to take that Bastard Qaddafi out and end this mess now! This is Europe's war for oil and Obama is their stooge. So I ask you. where the hell is the Obama effigy with buckets of blood and oil?

What she said...

...what she meant

"are you kidding?  Syria doesn't have any oil! Dumb shit!"

Olberman Pushes Lefty Loons Over the Edge. Greed is Good But Schadenfreude is Better

scha·den·freu·de

/ˈʃɑdnˌfrɔɪdə/ Show Spelled[shahd-n-froi-duh] Show IPA

–noun

satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.

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A la Walter Cronkite "When you've lost Olberman, you have lost the loony left"

Special Comment: Libya, Obama, and the Five-Second Rule

and the comments and reactions are precious. Here are just a few.

# Pat Tibbs 2011-03-24 11:06

Watching sausage being made is not a healthy activity. I suspect that the administration didn't sync its messages sufficiently and now we're left to wonder whether the administration wants Qhadafi to do, or not.

Given the tightness of message out of POTUS presidential campaign it's surprising how inept the administration has been since taking office.

Really? We are suprised that no experience but for some Acorn community organizing does not properly prepare you to lead the greatest nation on earth? E gads!

# Loup-Bouc 2011-03-24 12:01

PART 1

Congress ought force Obama to stop invading Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.

Obama’s Libya invasion goes beyond the UN authorization; so it is illegal. Congress did not authorize it; so it is illegal.

The other invasions are clear violations of international law and, so, illegal.

The House of Representatives ought impeach Obama. The Senate ought convict him. He is an arch criminal, like Bush & Cheney, and for the same reasons, and more.

The D of J ought prosecute Obama, Bush, and Cheney. The federal judiciary ought imprison all three for life without chance of parole.

Not only are Obama, Bush, and Cheney arch criminals, but their military crimes have cost the federal budget a deficit of more than $6.6 Trillion, while social services, clean & safe energy, and infrastructure have suffered huge funding-lacks.

Do not vote for Republicans or Democrats, except the very rare Democrat true progressives. Vote for independent progressives and progressive third party candidates. Join the Wisconsin labor revolution.

Progressive third party candidates? What is that? I have never seen one.

# Susan W 2011-03-24 12:58

Obama learned his lessons well from Dubya and company. Since the Constitution says only Congress can declare war, just go invade some faraway country for "humanitarian reasons" and even though it looks like a war, sounds like a war and seeems to be a war it isn't a war if you don't call it one. Really, does Operation New Dawn, or whatever it is named, sound like a war?

Up is down, black is white and war is peace.

Where Have All the Peaceniks Gone?

Where is Cindy Sheehan? Where is code pink?

One would think that having a blood thirsty, oil hungry president starting yet another military adventure in the Mideast would draw out the throngs of people that regularly protest war. Oh, that was just for Bush. It was so vogue to hate Bush, and what could be a better vehicle for that hate than taking the phony pose of a humanitarian against the idea of war.

Yeah right!

You really can't blame Cindy though. While she may have hit the sauce a little bit on St Patty's day, got drunk, and confessed her partisan ways, she has recovered and climbed right back on top of that horse!

So why is it that instead of angry, loud protests all you can hear is the sound of chirping crickets?

Remember back when?

MediaMatters

SUMMARY: Bill O'Reilly claimed he was not "vilifying" anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan, just stating the "fact" that Sheehan was being "run by far-left elements who are using her, and she's dumb enough to allow it to happen."

Guess what Cindy. He was right.

I sort of admire Cindy because she hasn't abandoned her cause just because a democrat was elected. I wonder if she was shocked or stunned when she came to the stark realization that her supporters were nothing more than partisan operatives doing whatever they could to put Republicans in a bad light, rather than being dedicated to the ideal of a world with no wars. I also wonder if it is as fun doing anti-war protests when the media no longer cares to cover it.

Chomsky is still a Chump!

How does this guy continue to be revered as some type of philosophical guru while speaking complete untruths in front of supposedly learned audiences? I've pointed out before how this guy appears to exist in some opposite upside down world universe.

Chomsky the Chump
And he's still at it!

Noam Chomsky lectures on nation’s problems

"The military budget is half of the deficit," Chomsky said. "The other half is the heavily privatized health care system. We would not have debt and might even have a surplus if we did not have (the health care system)."

I've heard him say this many times, including in the video below, and it is just simply not true, yet none of the brilliant know it all intellectuals call him on it. A little over half of annual spending by the government goes to defense, and what Noam calls health-care which he means medicare, and medicaid. Now, if half of your annual budget goes to health-care and defense, then how are you able to apportion those two line items to 100% of your debt? Unless you are cooking the books, all of your expenditures are proportionally responsible for your overage.

Chomsky also discussed terrorism and the post-Sept. 11 United States.
"Bush said terrorists committed crimes because they hate our freedoms," he said.
Contrary to this statement, Chomsky said that Muslims actually hate our policies, not our freedoms.
Chomsky said United States' policies actually benefit Jihadists.

Wrong again Noam! The Jihadists do hate us for our freedoms. Unless of course by policy you mean policies like educating our women. Policies like not requiring women to wear burkas. Policies like not incarcerating homosexuals. Policies like allowing people to listen to western music.

"The U.S. remains Bin Laden's only ally," he said.
Chomsky discussed the United States' support of dictatorships in Egypt, Tunisia, Georgia, Jordan and Colombia. He said this too falls under the "guiding principle."

Really? Last time I checked Columbia was a real democracy with a real freely elected president. Georgia too!

"The United States has a violent labor history," he said. "The rallying cry of the late 19th-century labor movement was, 'Those who work in mills should own them,'" he said.
Chomsky said this holds significance today, specifically with the automobile industry.
"Obama took over the auto industry, so the government owns it," he said. "The government is closing plants when they could turn them over to the workers and let them run it for profit."

Well, you get partial credit here Noam. The labor movement truly has been violent. Violent thugs who feel they deserve the property of people who took risks and became succesful. It's funny how labor only wants too take ownership of the successful businesses, which is precisely why, Noam, that the workers have not taken over those closed plants you claim they could run.

"Democrats today are what used to be moderate Republicans, and today's Republicans are so deep in the pockets of business, you have to have a magnifying glass to find them," he said.

Oh my god! Who lets him get away with such fantasies? Does he really believe a John F Kennedy, cut taxes and be strong on defense democrat would be tolerated in today's party?  The democratic party has moved so far left that communist principles and leaders are openly praised and adored.

"Social Security is actually in good shape, despite what you read," he said. "The rich want to get rid of Social Security, because it is based on the principles of compassion and solidarity, and (the spread of these principles) could be dangerous for the rich."

No Noam, it's because it's a ponzi scheme, and all ponzi schemes eventually implode. As soon as it's mathmatically impossible to expand the base of the pyramid to pay the few at the top, it collapses.

Students said they gained valuable insights from Chomsky's lecture.

God help us all!

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CL

Get Ready for the Fiercely All Gay Military (FAGM)

The first official act of rescinding the "Don't ask Don't tell" policy was to relive Captain Owen Honors of his command.  The fiery gay politics that has distracted so many other aspects of our society will now loom large in the military. Here I think the shift and cultural change could be monumental.

Don't get me wrong. This not an anti-gay rant. Gays have rights. They deserve to be treated equal, including some equivalent status as married couples (just don't call it marriage because that would be like deciding to call the sky green instead of blue - but that's a post for another day). And they do deserve to serve in our military.

"Don't ask Don't Tell" merely glossed over what might be considered a logistical problem.

Look at it this way. What if when we decided to let women serve in the military we said "OK ladies you can serve in the military now. Just one thing though. You have to be housed and share showers with the males who serve in the military. What? That's a problem? You feel uncomfortable? Oh get over yourselves. Frankly your not that good looking so I am sure you have nothing to worry about. What? You still feel uncomfortable? What is your major malfunction!?!?  Are you some kind of heterophobic sicko? I mean really!"

I think if we had made it that uncomfortable for women, not many of them would have joined up. I think unless they make the same type of accommodations they made for women (separate housing) or just say tough everybody, suck it up, everyone is being housed together from now on (see "Starship Troopers"), we may see the military culture shift to a point where only gay people will feel comfortable serving.

By not wanting gays to feel uncomfortable everyone else needs to be made uncomfortable.

Obamastan or Osamastan?

Because I respect the role of 'Commander-in-Chief' I have kept my opinion on Gen Mcchrystal's request for 40,000 more troops to myself. When you are the Commander-in-Chief it really is your decision. It's on you! So, one can understand painstaking contemplation and the desire to be in complete command of the facts and all the options. You do not want to screw up your war.

That's right, it's Obama's war now, and he has some pretty important decisions to make. The first decision is whether you want to win the war or go home. If you want to win the war, well then, you don't have to take your general's advice? But, if you don't agree with your general, then maybe he's not the right guy. I mean you have every right to be concerned about results if you tell him, "No. Do it my way". He's going to salute, turn around, roll his eyes and walk out of the room. You would be right to question the conviction with which he will execute your plan. It would be completely legitimate to take the course that Obama's hero, Abraham Lincoln, took and keep firing generals until you find one that does what you want and gets the results that you want. That get's a little dicey though. The lessons of Vietnam hang heavy around our necks. That was a war we felt we had to fight, but apparently did not want to win. Conventional wisdom that has lasted over the many years is that the politicians tied one hand behind the back of our military. Politics got in the way of winning the war.

I guess that's why I feel it OK to now come out and criticize the indecision of the Commander-in-Chief. I worry that this may be the turning point where Afghanistan becomes like Vietnam. Because of politics, it could be come a war that we fight but don't want to win. The very idea that the elections in Afghanistan have anything to do with what our strategy might be is ridiculous. We are there to get Osama Bin Laden and to make sure that Afghanistan can never again be a place where terrorist organizations like Al Queda can operate with impunity. Who happens to be the president of Afghanistan doesn't matter except in the plans for withdrawing and leaving behind a stable government.....Once we win!

The real disconcerting thoughts are that our president has no conviction about this war. I think the Wall Street Journal described the president as 'playing hamlet'. But I don't think Obama's hamlet is contemplative and thoughtful, mais non, he is political and wily. He is more concerned with angering his allies, and losing points in the polls. He has no conviction as to whether this war should be fought or not. If you have conviction, you end up like George W Bush, and he does not want that to happen. My god! Just imagine! I mean look at the thin skin already displayed by this presidency! He is already at war with Fox News because he doesn't like their opposing views on health care! Imagine if he had to deal with anything like what GWB had to deal with? He would declare martial law!

And therefor have to bring the troops home from Afghanistan to shore up the home front.
Hmmmmmm.......