There’s Something About Milley

General Mark Milley is officially “woke.” It is interesting how he equated the study of Critical Race Theory (CRT) by our military with the study of Marxism by our military. Marxism, an alien and enemy ideology, was studied by our military as such. General Milley obviously does not view CRT as an alien and enemy ideology, however.

For decades, conservatives have been pointing out that all the Political Correctness/Victim ID/Social Justice/Woke stuff is merely the translation of Marx’s critical theory from economic into cultural terminology. For just as long, proponents of Cultural Marxism have been denying the existence of Cultural Marxism, while simultaneously espousing Cultural Marxism and decrying anyone who believes in the existence of Cultural Marxism as an “Anti-Semite.” Now, because General Milley apparently wants to spread it throughout the ranks, everyone is talking about CRT, which is Marx’s critical theory translated from economic into cultural terminology. What a spectacle.

Many people learned everything they needed to know about General Milley in October of 2016 when he gave a speech, with the cadence of a politician, about how we will militarily “beat” Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea harder than they have ever been beaten. It is important to remember that, throughout the 2016 election cycle, Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton campaigned for POTUS on the promise that she would start wars with Nuclear Russia, Nuclear China, Nuclear North Korea, Iran, and Syria. Whereas anyone who was old enough to remember the Cold War could still very easily understand why we do not attack our nuclear-armed adversaries, Hillary Clinton made Nuclear World War III the central plank of her foreign policy platform.

In March of 2016, General Milley weighed in on the issue of war with Nuclear Russia, Nuclear China, etc., while testifying on Capitol Hill. He said that “years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, constrained budgets and troop cuts have had a cumulative effect on the service.”

But what Milley describes as a “great power war” against one or two of four countries – China, Russia, Iran and North Korea – would pose greater challenges.

Milley says the Army’s readiness is not at a level that is appropriate for what the American people expect to defend them.

General Milley was absolutely correct in March of 2016: the United States was not ready for Nuclear World War III. But just such a great power war is precisely what Establishment-darling Hillary Clinton promised her supporters, repeatedly, throughout the 2016 campaign. Attempts at challenging her supporters to actually think about what she was saying, and to consider the prospect of everyone they loved and knew being incinerated in a nuclear holocaust, were typically met with thoughtless counter-charges of “sexism” and “misogyny.” Thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of nuclear warhead strikes all over the globe, with each warhead capable of incinerating a land mass the size of Texas, was totally worth it to most Hillary Clinton supporters, who simply believed that we needed a woman president because no woman had ever been president therefore we needed a woman president.

Still, some Hillary Clinton supporters were on the fence. They wondered if Hillary Clinton’s promise of starting Nuclear World War III might somehow backfire, like each and every other war or foreign policy initiative she had ever supported. The fence-sitters needed reassurances. A month before the election, the pro-Nuclear World War III Establishment found a camouflaged sock puppet. Suddenly the prospect of a great power war was no problem, according to General Milley. Had anything actually changed in real life? No. Even to this day, we are still not ready for Nuclear World War III. But in 2016, at a time when the US needed good and honest leadership, General Milley went AWOL.

General Milley’s latest antics, and any subsequent antics he plans to implement in the future, should not surprise anyone.

US To Keep About 650 Troops In Afghanistan After Withdrawal

AP:

Roughly 650 U.S. troops are expected to remain in Afghanistan to provide security for diplomats after the main American military force completes its withdrawal, which is set to be largely done in the next two weeks, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Thursday.

In addition, several hundred additional American forces will remain at the Kabul airport, potentially until September, to assist Turkish troops providing security, as a temporary move until a more formal Turkey-led security operation is in place, the officials said.

Six-hundred, plus “several hundred additional,” troops is not a withdrawal. The Taliban will not require the presence of our diplomats, or our troops.

Afghan Government Could Collapse Six Months After U.S. Withdrawal, New Intelligence Assessment Says

Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. intelligence community concluded last week that the government of Afghanistan could collapse as soon as six months after the American military withdrawal from the country is completed, according to officials with knowledge of the new assessment.

American intelligence agencies revised their previously more optimistic estimates as the Taliban swept through northern Afghanistan last week, seizing dozens of districts and surrounding major cities. Afghan security forces frequently surrendered without a fight, leaving their Humvees and other American-supplied equipment to the insurgents.

Taliban Advances Test Afghan Forces’ Morale As The U.S. Leaves

Wall Street Journal:

Trained and equipped by the U.S. and Western allies for nearly two decades, the Afghan security forces, numbering roughly 260,000 men, should be strong enough to prevent the Taliban from seizing power in the immediate aftermath of the American military withdrawal that is nearing completion.

Yet, the seemingly never-ending succession of battlefield setbacks that suddenly accelerated this weekend is beginning to create a perception of inevitability about a Taliban takeover. It is a perception that, unless quickly reversed, risks snowballing into a self-fulfilling prophecy, Afghan officials warn.

This is why we should have been out on the deadline, May 1.

Confusion In Afghanistan As U.S. Cancels NATO Flag-Lowering Ceremony

NBC News:

The U.S.-led military mission in Afghanistan planned to hold a flag-lowering ceremony on Friday in Kabul with NATO allies but the event was cancelled at the last moment amid questions over what the ceremony was meant to signify, according to three U.S. Defense officials.

The cancellation reflected a wider sense of confusion and uncertainty surrounding the U.S. troop withdrawal, with defense contractors appealing for more guidance from Washington, former Afghan interpreters pleading for protection from the Taliban and the U.S. embassy hit by a major Covid-19 outbreak.

Fort Smith Prepares For Juneteenth

40/29:

On Saturday, Juneteenth celebrations will take place from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. at Harry E. Kelley River Park with music, dancing, comedy and family activities.

It’s important in Fort Smith because we’re a community, it’s important in Fort Smith to embrace our history, it’s important in Fort Smith to love ourselves and this is how we do that. We fellowship, we get to know each other, we learn our history, we become proud of our history and then we move forward from our history and this is the starting point,” said Jurena Storm, government affairs liaison to the office of Mayor George McGill.

For nearly two thousand years, Christmas existed as a solemn Catholic Mass to celebrate the birth of the Jewish Messiah. In the Modern Era, with state-sanctioning and commercialization, that holy day has become a celebration of lights on trees with an immortal, Nordic demigod commanding an army of elves, and magically traveling around the world with a squadron of flying reindeer. Alas, the process of bastardization has already begun with Juneteenth.

Juneteenth originated as a celebration of the end of slavery in Texas in June of 1865. President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation only proclaimed the emancipation of slaves in territory under Confederate rule, where he had no jurisdiction. Slavery continued in the United States throughout the war, and for many months afterward, only ending in December of 1865 with the ratification of the 13th Amendment.

Fort Smith sat on the river across from the Cherokee and Choctaw Nations, where the 13th Amendment did not exist, and where slavery continued until the Reconstruction Treaties went into effect in 1866. African-Americans whose families have lived in the River Valley for many generations are largely descended from people who continued in slavery for another year after US General Gordon Granger arrived at Galveston Island on June 19, 1865. If we are talking about people from Fort Smith, or the city of Fort Smith, then Juneteenth certainly is not “our history.”

Not that I do not like to party. In fact, the solution is clearly to have more parties. Keep Juneteenth as Juneteenth, invent a separate Federal holiday marking the ratification of the 13th Amendment in December, and invent a special local holiday to celebrate the final emancipation of African-Americans in the nations which Fort Smith was originally created to oversee. Call it Freedmen Day, or Freedpersons Day if the historically-relevant terminology is now somehow offensive. It could also be called “Jultenth,” because the Choctaw and Chickasaw treaties went into effect on July 10, 1866, or “Augleventh” because the Cherokee and Creek ratified their treaties on August 11, 1866.

Reaper To Conduct First Flight From Fort Smith As Part Of 188th Exercise

Talk Business & Politics:

“This is a phenomenal opportunity to dynamically employ the MQ-9 in our superb training facilities and airspace, providing real-time, face-to-face debriefing and data sharing,” said Col. Patric Coggin, 188th Operations Group commander. “Hosting this exercise capitalizes on our unique proximity to nearby training airspace and favorable weather.”

The MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft will launch from the Fort Smith Regional Airport for training flights over Razorback Range at Fort Chaffee Joint Maneuver Training Center near Charleston. The close proximity from launch location to training area provides more time for training rather than transport, which is the norm for other locations, said Capt. Dylan Hollums, 188th public affairs officer.

Afghanistan: District After District Falls To The Taliban

Deutsche Welle:

Since the beginning of NATO’s official troop withdrawal from Afghanistan on May 1, the Islamist militant group has taken over at least 27 districts from Afghan forces, and the number is rapidly increasing.

The Taliban are intensifying attacks across Afghanistan to gain more territory ahead of NATO’s troop withdrawal in September. The militant group now controls vast swaths of land.

Taliban Eye Total Control Of Afghanistan

The News:

With Afghan troops in retreat and soon to lose vital American air support, Taliban commanders are voicing exuberance about quickly seizing full control of the country and re-establishing their version of an Islamic state.

Unprecedented peace talks between the insurgents and Afghan government continue to flutter, and as violence rages across Afghanistan, militants claim to have taken nearly 30 districts since the US began its final troop withdrawal in early May.

With supply lines stretched, Afghan forces have been clobbered by Taliban in recent weeks, forcing the country’s military leaders to strategically retreat from a number of rural districts. “The arrogant Americans thought they could wipe the Taliban from the face of the earth,” said Mullah Misbah, an insurgent commander in violence-wracked Ghazni province, during a recent interview.

“But the Taliban defeated the Americans and their allies, and, God willing, an Islamic regime will be established in Afghanistan now that they are leaving.” In recent weeks, the Taliban have taken two districts in Ghazni, a key province straddling the highway connecting the capital with the former insurgent stronghold of Kandahar to the south.

Biden Says It ‘Remains To Be Seen’ Whether Ukraine Will Be Admitted To NATO

NBC News:

President Joe Biden made clear Monday that Ukraine does not yet have the go-ahead to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a move long sought by Ukraine and vehemently opposed by Russia.

For a moment, it appeared Ukraine may be closer to joining the trans-Atlantic mutual protection treaty when President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared to announce a change on Twitter shortly before Biden began a news conference in Brussels, where he was attending a NATO summit.

“Commend @NATO partners’ understanding of all the risks and challenges we face. NATO leaders confirmed that (Ukraine) will become a member of the Alliance,” Zelenskyy tweeted. His tweet did not say when the country would join.

Biden, who has previously called for Ukraine to join NATO, made clear that such a move had not been approved yet.

Joe Biden is lying, of course. It was decided in 2008 that NATO would consume Ukraine, as NATO itself reaffirmed today:

We reiterate the decision made at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP) as an integral part of the process; we reaffirm all elements of that decision, as well as subsequent decisions, including that each partner will be judged on its own merits.

The reason Joe Biden has flipped into damage control mode might be his upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin. For the Russians, NATO’s projected consumption of Ukraine can only be perceived as an existential threat:

Ukraine and Georgia’s NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.

The US/EU/NATO axis has been waging a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine since the Obama-Biden Administration fomented the coup which brought about the demise of Ukraine’s constitutional, democratically-elected government in 2014. The Biden Administration is fully committed to escalation.

US Weighs Attacks If Kabul At Risk Of Falling To Taliban: Report

Al Jazeera:

The United States is considering intervening with drones or warplanes in the event big Afghan cities are at risk of falling to the Taliban, The New York Times has reported.

The report comes as the US continues its withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, with the Pentagon expected to conclude the pullout in early July, well before the September 11 deadline. A NATO-led coalition is also withdrawing its troops from the country.

The deadline to withdraw was May 1. Instead of figuring out how to hit the Taliban in Kabul “if” the Taliban take the city, we should first be focused on getting everyone out of the country. It is going to be hard to hit the Taliban in Kabul if the city’s inevitable fall occurs before our half-assed withdrawal is complete.

A Total Of 27 Graves Have Been Found So Far At 1921 Tulsa Massacre Search Site

CNN:

That is 15 new burials since the 12 that were uncovered in October, according to Oklahoma state archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck.

Stackelbeck expects that more graves will be uncovered as the excavation moves west, but says that some of these deaths may be associated with the 1918-1919 flu pandemic.

“So we have to remain cautious and not get too ahead of ourselves in terms of our interpretations. So we’re working with our multiple hypotheses about what can explain the presence of a mass grave,” she said, adding that the graves from the massacre is “absolutely still a possible scenario.”

Fort Smith Selected For Military Pilot Training Center; Estimated $1 Billion Economic Impact

Talk Business & Politics:

“This is an absolute game-changer for Fort Smith,” Tim Allen, chamber president and CEO, said in a statement. “The selection process was extremely rigorous. The months-long, meticulous, behind-the-scenes effort between the congressional delegation, Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s office, the city and the Chamber positioned us perfectly to secure this project. Welcoming this new mission, these families, and the talented military team that will be making their new home here, will mean wave after wave of economic growth for the area for years to come.”

Truman Presented 2020 Battenberg Cup Award, Recognized As Best Ship In The Atlantic Fleet

US Navy:

The crew of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) received the 2020 Battenberg Cup Award in a ceremony aboard the ship, June 1, 2021. 

The Battenberg Cup is awarded annually to the ship or submarine selected by the fleet commander as the best all-around in the Atlantic Fleet, based on accumulation of crew achievements.

Congratulations to the crew of the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) for maintaining the best ship in the fleet. I remember the first time the crew of that boat took the cup.

I reported onboard in July of 2001, when most of the crew were still Plank Owners. She was the newest carrier in the Navy, just settling in from her maiden deployment. My first master chief, like many other senior officers and enlisted onboard at the time, originally joined the Navy during the Vietnam War. Several of our old hands were trained in their early days by veterans of World War Two or Korea. We went into the shipyard on September 5, and watched Nine Eleven go down on the big screen in the aft mess deck. After half a year of planned maintenance, we spent most of 2002 preparing for war. We deployed that December for Operation Southern Watch, but we knew that a full-blown war of regime change in Iraq would be awaiting our arrival. 

Because Turkey would not allow our Coalition ground forces to invade Iraq from their territory, our Special Forces operators and the rebels they organized in northern Iraq were cut off from reinforcements. The Truman Battle Group posted up in the northeastern Mediterranean, with the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) Battle Group in the southeastern Mediterranean. Both battle groups were combined as one, whose commander, Rear Admiral John D. Stufflebeem of Carrier Group Two, noted that we constituted “the largest U.S. Navy battle force assembled in the Mediterranean for combat since World War II.”

Our air wing flew a circuit north over Turkish airspace, around Syria, down into Iraq, and back over Jordanian and Israeli airspace. We conducted operations around the clock, not even stopping to replenish our stores. In fact, we pulled off an underway replenishment while simultaneously conducting air combat operations. It was the first time the US Navy conducted such an operation since the Vietnam War. It only took the Coalition three weeks to take Baghdad, but the Truman Battle Group stuck around, hitting targets for a solid month. We lit up the enemy on the first night of the war, and we dropped more ordnance on Iraq than any other battle group. We made history in a number of ways during the war, and on the voyage home. After 89 days without a port visit, we stopped by Portsmouth, England, and went on a “spectacular binge.”

We earned our Battle Efficiency Ribbons in 2002 and 2003, and in 2004 we won the Marjorie Sterrett Battleship Fund Award. It was also in 2004, as we prepared to lead the forces of democracy in the largest naval maneuver of NATO’s history, when the admiral gave our skipper the Battenburg Cup for 2003.

Adm. William J. Fallon, presents the 2003 Battenburg Cup Award to Commanding Officer, USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), Capt. Michael Groothousen, on June 2, 2004.

City Administrator: Flags Of U.S. Military Branches To Fly At Fort Smith Riverfront Park

Southwest Times Record:

Fort Smith City Administrator Carl Geffken said the flags representing the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard will fly next to the United States flag at the park.

The action follows a May 19 request from Fort Smith attorney Joey McCutchen to oblige the Arkansas State Capitol and Historical Monument Protection Act (Senate Bill 553, now Act 1003 of 2021) and replace the flags that flew at Riverfront Park from October 2001 to April 2020. Those flags represented nations once in control of land now known as Arkansas: France, the United States of America, and the Confederate States of America.

A May 25 letter to Geffken from Colby Roe of Daily & Woods law firm in Fort Smith states that after review of the Arkansas State Capitol and Historical Monument Protection Act there are “serious doubts as to whether the Riverfront Park flag display would be characterized as a ‘historical monument’ under the Act.”

Although city administration claims that the flags were taken down “due to age and condition,” it is largely understood that the flags were in fact removed due to the existence of slavery in Royal France, Spain, and the Confederacy. Displaying the flags of those governments is no longer Politically Correct, and so their flags must be replaced by the flags of institutions such as the US Navy, which once defended the international slave trade at sea, and the US Army, which once secured the rights of slaveowners here on the homefront.