If you remember, it was back in the waning days of the 2008 presidential election in Columbia, Missouri when then Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama made a defining assertion: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” What I found interesting was that no one…
My op-ed on the thirty-fifth anniversary of the US Marine Beirut Barracks Bombing had generated a number of questions on the US Navy’s disastrous follow-on strike on 4 December, 1983 against two Syrian surface-to-air missile sites (SA-7) that were firing on our reconnaissance aircraft. To set the record straight, here…
It was a weekend to remember. First, I spent Friday and Saturday back on ol’ Rocky Top for our University of Tennessee Army ROTC Hall of Fame Dinner and reunion. The goal is to have it coincide with Veterans Day weekend. Friday morning, we old guys braved a cool wet…
China and Pakistan have plainly stated their plans for Afghanistan and South Asia. According to a press release from the November 12 conference held at Islamabad’s Pakistan-China Institute, “Pakistan-Afghanistan-China Trilateral Dialogue supports the CPEC [China-Pakistan Economic Corridor] as key to peace and regional cooperation.” Pakistani news outlets emphasized the point, one stating, “Pakistan and…
On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 an armistice between Germany and the Allied nations came into effect. On November 11, 1919, Armistice Day was commemorated for the first time. In 1919, President Wilson proclaimed the day should be “…filled with solemn pride…
I am not talking about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a program of infrastructure and resource exploitation projects linked to a transportation network that connects China to the Pakistani ports of Gwadar and Karachi on the Arabian Sea, the flagship of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Beijing’s blueprint…
Imagine we are in a court of law, that we have gone through a lengthy trial, and it is now time for closing arguments. On one side we have the plaintiff, progressive socialism, and on the other side there is the defendant, constitutional conservatism. Progressive socialism has brought a lawsuit…
We are just hours away from what is being billed as one of, if not the most important, election in our lifetime. There is no doubt that the stakes and the consequences are enormous. We will either face two years of hearings, subpoenas and investigations into the Trump White House…
The real answer is, “we are about to find out at the completion of the 2018 mid-term election”. But first let us look at the dictionary definition of a fool, then of a patriot. A fool is defined as a person without good sense or judgment; a person who acts…
China seeks global domination. The vehicle to achieve it is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a collection of infrastructure projects and a network of commercial agreements designed to link the entire world directly to the Chinese economy through inter-connected land-based and maritime routes. The guarantor of that soft power approach is the hard power of military expansion.…
Our heartfelt condolences and prayers to the victims of the tragic shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Once again, a deranged person, filled with a demonic evil, has taken innocent lives. Here in Texas we sadly remember the shooting in Sutherland Springs, almost exactly a year ago,…
With all the media focus on the caravan, the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi murder, and later the pipe bombs, there was scant coverage of the tragic Beirut US Marine Barracks bombing October 23, 1983. We had proof positive intelligence that the orders for that bombing came direct from Tehran, but…