The Pirates of the Caribbean: the 200 Horses Indicator

Remember this guest post from Claude Berube last May?

In this highly-trafficked area, tourist destinations such as Aruba, Trinidad & Tobago, and Grenada are within two hundred kilometers of the Venezuelan coastline. At what point, however, would southern Caribbean piracy merit attention?

Well, like I tell everyone; if you want to know what will happen tomorrow, read CDRSalamander today.

Behold;

If your idea of a tropical paradise is based on what you've seen in tourist brochures, the coastline of south-west Trinidad will not disappoint. Golden beaches and coconut groves? Tick. Sleepy villages, full of fishermen snoozing under palm trees? Tick. A relaxed, laid-back vibe? Hmm. Actually, no.

Take a closer look in villages like Fullarton, and you'll notice a few things seem out of place. For one, why have so many of the fishermen got 200 horsepower engines on their boats, when 75 is more than enough? And why, when they go out fishing at night, do none of them put lights on any more?

When you have mouths to feed ...

The answer, as fisherman Gerry Padarath explains from his beachside hammock, is pirates.
...
He gestures out to sea, where across a stretch of mud-brown water another coastline can be seen. It's mainland Venezuela - which, at its closest point, lies just 20km (12 miles) from Trinidad.

In happier times, ferries used to bring groups of Venezuelan tourists to party in Trinidad. Today, though, as Venezuela slides further into all-out economic collapse, its impoverished coastal ports have become modern Hispaniolas - havens for buccaneers.

Socialism strikes again;

Most of the pirates are ex-fishermen, who used to make a good living catching tuna, octopus and shrimp in the Caribbean's warm waters. But under Venezuela's former president, Hugo Chavez, the fishing industry underwent a well-intentioned but disastrous nationalisation programme, prompting companies to relocate abroad.

With the added blow of hyperinflation, many of the fishermen now have no job and no way to feed their families. They do however have access to boats and to guns, which are in ready supply on Venezuela's increasingly lawless streets.

This is sad in so many ways.

How many more examples do people need that the false promises of socialism - really just a pitch to the poor in order to enable a power grab by a few - brings only poverty and strife?

Venezuela used to be the richest country in Latin America.

Bad governments run on bad theories lead to bad results.

H/t Claude Berube.

Dog Soup and Dragons: Is Venezuela the next place for Maritime Piracy

Guest post by Claude Berube

All roads lead to Rome, but most commerce is conducted via sea lanes. As a recent report shows, those sea lanes remain under threat to varying degrees by non-state actors. The annual Oceans Beyond Piracy report by One Earth Future was released last week with its assessments of global and regional pirate attacks for 2017. Piracy off the Horn of Africa have largely abated compared to the level a decade ago. Attacks in Southeast Asia and the Gulf of Guinea continue to pose challenges. But pay attention to the numbers in Latin America and the Caribbean, specifically the Venezuelan coast. According to the report, incidents in Latin America and the Caribbean rose from 27 in 2016 to 71 in 2017 with a large concentration along the Venezuelan coast. Most of the ships – primarily yachts and tankers – were at anchor.

We’ve seen this play out before. Threats at sea along coastlines reflect instability ashore, or the inability of a territorial government to effectively patrol and intercept human smugglers, narco-traffickers, or pirates. Venezuela continues its descent from failed policies. From The Economist:

[Venezuela’s] economic policies have made life intolerable for most of the country’s 34m citizens. Food is in short supply, and nearly 90% of Venezuelans say they do not have enough money to eat properly. The contraction of the economy is the biggest in the history of Latin America. Prices are doubling nearly every month. At least a million people have left the country in the past four years.

The country’s inflation rate is intensifying the problem:

“Venezuela's inflation rate, already by far the world's highest, spiked from 4,966 percent to nearly 18,000 percent in just March and April — a trend that, if it continues, could push the country's annual rate to more than 100,000 percent by year's end, economists say.”

The health of a coastal nation’s fishing industry can sometimes be an indicator of maritime insecurity and the rise of piracy. In the case of Somalia, for example, large foreign fishing trawlers were able to conduct operations in territorial waters absent a government able to enforce fishing rights. Somali fishermen failed to garner sufficient catch to support themselves and some turned on each other. Others joined networks to take and ransom fishing vessels then larger prey just as tankers and freighters. Venezuela’s trajectory is different. Former president Hugo Chavez established a state-owned fishing enterprise to lower prices for Venezuelans. Long time private fishermen could not compete with the result that,

fish processing plants work at half capacity on good days. Machinery rusts in the salty breeze and there’s no way to replace broken parts.

Some Venezuelan fishermen – like their Somali counterparts more than a decade ago – have resorted to narco-trafficking and piracy. It is unknown if this trend is reversible in the near-term given the extent of the breakdown:

“In Venezuela, pirates are terrorizing the coastal state of Sucre, once home to the world's fourth-largest tuna fleet and a thriving fishing industry. That trade has collapsed, along with virtually every industry across Venezuela. Gangs of out-of-work fishermen prey upon those who still venture out into the open sea, stealing their catch and motors, tying them up, throwing them overboard, and sometimes shooting them. The robberies have taken place daily this year, and dozens of fishermen have died. People can't make a living fishing anymore, so they're using their boats for the options that remain: smuggling gas, running drugs and piracy," said Jose Antonio Garcia, leader of the state's largest union. The catch is down to less than a third of the 120,000 tons of tuna Venezuela produced in 2004. In June, Sucre was the epicenter of food riots that swept through the country. Punta de Araya families got through the summer by eating "dog soup," a broth made from seawater and the small fish that are usually thrown back.”

The Horn of Africa was a target-rich environment for Somali pirates. With the thousands of annual transits by the slower-moving fishing vessels and then tankers and freighters, particularly in the Gulf of Aden, pirates didn’t have to look far for a ship to attack, capture, and ransom. When recommended shipping lanes shifted eastward in the Indian Ocean, Somali pirates adapted and used motherships out hundreds of nautical miles, much to the surprise of some experts who told me “they would never do that.” Similarly, the southern Caribbean offers its own target-rich environment to potential Venezuelan pirates. In addition to larger ships, power and sailing yachts are common in the region in a way they weren’t in the Indian Ocean or Horn of Africa (cases like the ill-fated sailing yacht Quest which was surrounded by an aircraft carrier, a cruiser, and two destroyers.

In this highly-trafficked area, tourist destinations such as Aruba, Trinidad & Tobago, and Grenada are within two hundred kilometers of the Venezuelan coastline. At what point, however, would southern Caribbean piracy merit attention? There are several tiers.

Tier 1: the problem is likely seen as a Venezuelan problem requiring a Venezuelan solution. While facing critical challenges, the country does still have a functioning government.

Tier 2: should Venezuela collapse and piracy increases in nominal territorial waters against fishing vessels, the international community is likewise unlikely to respond as it largely failed to do in the early 2000s off Somalia. Yachts would likely be diverted from the region.

Tier 3: if Venezuelan piracy networks develop and adapt to taking larger ships, it may merit an international response if it has learned the lesson from Somalia. More likely, however, it may defer to the shipping industry. In the earliest phases of large ships being taken and held for ransom, shipping companies found they could pay the ransom and have the ship and crew released in weeks. Once ships and crews were held for months and pirates demanded millions for ransoms, insurance rates rose necessitating a response first by industry in best management practices including on-board armed guards. Only later did the international community respond en masse.

There are at least three factors, however, that are different in this case. First, armed riders usually only appear with the larger shipping companies; fishing vessels – the first to fall victim to pirates – can’t afford that luxury. They have to resort to defending themselves, abandoning their trade, or joining in on the melee and fight for whatever they can take. Second, the southern Caribbean is in America’s backyard facilitating navy and coast guard platforms and assets easier than was done initially with Somalia.

Third, according to the Oceans Beyond Piracy report, the most affected seafarers are from India, the Philippines, and China. China already invests in the Caribbean and the PLA/N has built up significant overseas capabilities with its twenty-nine flotillas it has deployed since January 2009. At what point would China seize an opportunity like the threat of its seafarers to intercede and assert itself in a region?

Is this alarmist? It’s best to remember that the threat to American sailors off North Africa led to the first squadrons deployed to the Mediterranean under Commodores Dale, Morris, and Preble. Why would we expect any another country and its rising navy to be any different?

In the word of CDR Salamander: ponder.

Claude Berube is the co-editor of “Maritime Private Security: Market Responses to Piracy, Terrorism and Waterborne Security Risks in the 21st Century” (Routledge, 2012) and the novels The Aden Effect and Syren’s Song. He teaches at the Naval Academy and has been writing about modern piracy and private security for more than a decade. A Navy Reserve officer, he served off the Horn of Africa in 2005. The views expressed are his and not those of the Navy.
Twitter @cgberube

Grasping at the Fading Light

It's taken a week, but I think I've finally found a way to address a slightly bizarre article by Wyatt Olson in S&S on the soon to be outgoing SECNAV. It isn't the writing that is bizarre, it is the mess of the subject at hand, Ray Mabus.

After originally being a fan, I soured on Mabus when he started down the "Great Green Fleet" boondoggle, and I've never really seen a reason to come back. I wish I were wrong about him, but after going back to Olson's article, I've come to the conclusion that I was correct in keeping a tilted head. 

Mabus isn't "bad" as SECNAV, it is just that in so many things, his personal biases lead him to be wrong. If he focused on what a SECNAV should so, I think he would be an exceptionally solid SECNAV - but look at the strange items he invested professional capital on to satisfy personal agenda items. What a waste.

First, let's start with what Mabus has done well.

On the top of his to-do list was increasing the number of ships being built for the Navy, a goal Mabus has achieved.

“In 2001, the U.S. Navy had 316 ships,” Mabus said. “By 2008, seven years later, after one of the big military buildups in our history, we were down to 278 ships.” With the contracts in the pipeline, the Navy is on track to possess 308 ships by 2021, he said.

Looking to the previous administration, as his Chief of Staff put it;

Not blaming, just facts. 41 ships put under contract 01-08. 86 under contract 09-16.

One could push back a bit about being involved in two resource stretching land wars in Asia from 01-08, but the numbers are what they are. Mabus's fleet building was done with the opposition party in control of Congress for most of his years in office - so good on him and his team there.

Now, let's get to the part of Olson's review that led me to further believe in Mabus's detachment from what his other policies actually are and their consumption of professional capital. Just a few examples;

Mabus contends that the underlying motive for his changes has been to make sailors and Marines better warfighters.

Warfighters. OK. When someone uses, "warfigher" in this way; shields up.

Mabus also touts the success of moving the Navy and Marine Corps away from fossil fuels to renewables. He launched the Great Green Fleet initiative soon after becoming secretary, and earlier this year the first aircraft carrier group was deployed using a 50-50 blend of fossil and biofuels.

As of last year, Navy and Marine Corps bases were getting half their energy from renewable sources, such as solar, wind and geothermal, Mabus said. Renewables account for about 35 percent of the energy the Navy uses at sea – half of which is nuclear.

“We’re better warfighters today because of it,” he said. “We’re more expeditionary because of it. We’re less vulnerable because of it.”

Experiments are good, but paying exorbitant amounts of money for bespoke blends to try some Soviet style industrial policy for renewable energy (covered here over the years), all during the period that fracking turned the USA in to a net exporter of fuel? No. Then there is the abuse of the word "warfighter" - something we'll see again. There is zero evidence anything involving fuel from beef fat helped in the Long War. Zip, zero, nada.

When it comes to naming ships, Mabus said, “I know I’m not going to please everybody. But my job, as I see it, is to make sure that those ships connect to the American people.

“If you live in Wichita, you don’t have much connection to the Navy normally. But now that there’s a USS Wichita, there’s that connection.”

In defending his strange ship naming policies - I have to throw a flag here. Wichita is in Kansas. When you look where the Navy recruits from, on a per capita basis Kansas comes in at #27 of 54 USA States and territories measured. Kansas has more Navy to it than the SECNAV's home state Mississippi (#28), and some States where one would think the Navy's presence would have some impact on recruiting; New Hampshire (#46), Connecticut (#48), and Rhode Island (#50).

Is the SECNAV ill-informed or just grasping for excuses and distractions unmoored by facts in order to avoid discussing why he really picked the names he did? Hard to tell, but he owes our Sailors from Kansas an apology.

He should have stopped there.

Mabus’s predecessor instituted a namesake convention based on famous American explorers and pioneers for a new class of supply ships called T-AKEs. Mabus named ships after civil rights leaders Medgar Evers and Cesar Chavez because he regards them as pioneers.

“I got the name Cesar Chavez from the shipyard,” he said. “They were the ones who recommended it because 85 percent of the shipyard workers in San Diego are Hispanic.”

Yeah, read that again.

What does one do with this? Is this patronizing or just plain insulting? 

What an assumption he makes here wrapped in an acceptance and promotion of sectarian based naming of ships. I guess that was more important than the consideration that Chavez was openly negative about his time in the Navy and the Navy in general.

As for the numbers, here's a fun fact; San Diego is only 28.8% "Hispanic." Under Mabus's leadership, the Navy has spent tens of millions of dollars bleating on about making sure our Navy "looks like America" - yet - well - I'll let you take it from there, this isn't Thursday.

There is more in the article to chew on, but here is a quote to help you look forward;

How much of Mabus’ legacy, including contracting, renewable energy and gender equality, will survive the incoming administration is an open question since Republicans won control of Congress and the White House in the Nov. 8 election.

“It’s hard to roll back the stuff your predecessor did unless there’s some reason that it’s absolutely not working,” VanDiver said.

Of potential reversals, Mabus said, “If you go back, you make us a less effective warfighting force. I don’t know anybody who wants to do that.

“It shouldn’t be ideological. It shouldn’t be a matter of political correctness or anything like that. It’s what makes us better warfighters.”

That is whistling past the graveyard. That which can be created on the sand of personal whim can be removed via the same methods.

It is not that hard to roll things back, all it takes is will and leadership. Looking at who the team the Trump Administration is probably going to put together from, you will have a Navy team focused on 350 ships and little foolishness. 

There will be compromises that will need to be made, we'll have to dance with the programs we have in the first decade, and hard work will need to be done to get on that glidepath - but the focus will be on what a Navy is, not what social and political experiments can be done with it. 

To accelerate progress towards 350, the new team will require the stripping away of non-value added distractions and anything that slows efficiency down. As such, there will be ample opportunity to pack up some of the previous Administration's hobby horses and put them on the curve for pickup.

It will be a grand sight to see.

Warships as Points of Personal Political Vanity

It seems that we have reached the point that SECNAV is getting drunk on his ability to name ships after pretty much anyone he wants.

There are few things that with clarity show the institutional narcissism of the ruling class than the naming of ships. Sure, there is a long history of naming ships for political gain - but with rare to any exception, it was for reasons of city, state or regional pride by naming a ship after the actual location, or a hero of local importance. Now it is just plain personal political vanity by proxy.

A House Republican introduced a measure Tuesday that would prevent the U.S. Navy from naming ships after lawmakers who have not served in the military or as president.

The measure would have prevented civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis and former Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin from receiving the honor but a House committee decided to pass up the opportunity to give the measure a vote in the full House.

The naming of ships or other government facilities after lawmakers sometimes has been controversial in recent years. Lewis’s status as a civil rights icon, which the Navy cited in its announcement, could have added more tension to the issue.

“Naming this ship after John Lewis is a fitting tribute to a man who has, from his youth, been at the forefront of progressive social and human rights movements in the U.S., directly shaping both the past and future of our nation,” Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said in a statement in January.
...
The measure was introduced as an amendment to the annual defense spending bill scheduled to be debated in the House this week. The proposal would have prevent the Pentagon from using any federal funds to name ships for “any member of Congress, living or deceased, unless such member served as the President of the United States or as a member of the Armed Forces.”

Members of the House Rules Committee decided Tuesday evening not to include the Palazzo proposal in a package of amendments that will get a vote in the full House to vote later this week.

Of course, it died. Of course.

Hard to define where it started in the modern habit, but I had the first sour taste in my mouth with the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) and USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74). Yes, important men to the Navy, but still - politicians that have zero inspiration this century outside Beltway bellybutton pickers.

Giffords, Chavez, Levin, Lewis - all a sort of political self-(use what term you wish here) not worth of our nation or our Navy. Or, perhaps we have degenerated to the point that it actually is, and I am too much of an optimist to see it. Yes, Sal the optimist. Mark your calendar, or weep.

The Cranberries Defend the SECNAV

Well - we've all more or less had our say about the eye-rolling naming decisions the SECNAV made from Navy hating CHAVEZ to the feel good public service narcissism of GIFFORDS - and as a result Congress wanted a report.

Of course, naming has never been pure - but that wasn't the point.

You can get a copy here or read it below. A good review and worth the read. Still no excuse.

"Everyone else is doing it, why can't we?" isn't a good enough reason for our kids, it shouldn't be for our Navy.

That being said, I agree with the report that a rigid system isn't the right path to take. We need some flexibility - but what we are really talking about here is specific judgement, not general policy.



Here is the audio version:

Fullbore Friday

In a time of war, age really doesn't matter. The genius of a 19-yr old can be brought to ruin by the valor of a 21-yr old.

The genius;

On 16 April 1862, the Confederate Navy Department, enthusiastic about the offensive potential of armored rams following the victory of their first ironclad CSS Virginia (the rebuilt USS Merrimack) over the wooden-hulled Union blockaders in Hampton Roads, Virginia, signed a contract with nineteen year old detached Confederate Lieutenant Gilbert Elliott of Elizabeth City, North Carolina; he was to oversee the construction of a smaller but still powerful gunboat to destroy the Union warships in the North Carolina sounds.

Yes, we are talking about the CSS ALBEMARLE.

Displacement: 376 tons
Length: 158 ft (48 m)
Beam: 35.4 ft (10.8 m)
Draught: 9 ft (2.7 m)
Propulsion: Steam
Speed: 4 knots
Complement: 150 officers and men
Armament: two 6.4 Brooke double-banded rifles

War record? A very good war record, but that's not why we are here.

Today we honor and honorable adversary (can't call such a man an enemy); the Yankee Lieutenant (later CDR) William B. Cushing, USN.

Cushing discovered two 30-foot (9.1 m) picket boats under construction in New York and acquired them for his mission (some accounts have them as 45 feet (14 m) to 47-feet). On each he mounted a Dahlgren 12 pounder howitzer and a 14-foot (4.3 m) spar projecting into the water from its bow. One of the boats was lost at sea during the voyage from New York to Norfolk, Virginia, but the other arrived safely with its crew of seven officers and men at the mouth of the Roanoke. There, the steam launch's spar was fitted with a lanyard-detonated torpedo.

On the night of October 27 and 28, 1864, Cushing and his team began working their way upriver. A small cutter accompanied them, its crew having the task of preventing interference by the Confederate sentries stationed on a schooner anchored to the wreck of Southfield; both boats, under the cover of darkness, slipped past the schooner undetected. So Cushing decided to use all twenty-two of his men and the element of surprise to capture Albemarle.

As they approached the Confederate docks their luck turned, and they were spotted in the dark. They came under heavy rifle and pistol fire from both the shore and aboard Albemarle. As they closed with the ironclad, they quickly discovered she was defended against approach by floating log booms. The logs, however, had been in the water for many months and were covered with heavy slime. The steam launch rode up and then over them without difficulty; with her spar fully against the ironclad's hull, Cushing stood up in the bow, pulled the lanyard, detonating the torpedo's explosive charge.

The explosion threw Cushing and his men overboard into the water; Cushing then stripped off most of his uniform and swam to shore, where he hid undercover until daylight, avoiding the hastily organized Confederate search parties. The next afternoon, he was finally able to steal a small skiff and began slowly paddling, using his hands and arms as oars, down-river to rejoin Union forces at the river's mouth. Cushing's long journey was quite perilous and he was nearly captured and almost drowned before finally reaching safety, totally exhausted by his ordeal; he was hailed a national hero of the Union cause for his daring exploits. Of the other men in Cushing's launch, one also escaped, two were drowned following to the explosion, and the rest were captured.

Cushing's daring commando raid blew a hole in Albemarle's hull at the waterline "big enough to drive a wagon in." She sank immediately in the six feet of water below her keel, settling into the heavy river bottom mud, leaving the upper casemate mostly dry and the ship's large Stainless Banner ensign flying from the flagstaff at the rear of the casemate's upper deck. Confederate commander Alexander F. Warley, who had been appointed as her captain about a month earlier, later salvaged both of Albemarle's rifled cannon and shells and used them to defend Plymouth against subsequent Union attack—futilely, as it turned out.

We have those same 19 and 21-yr old men in our Navy today. Officer and enlisted. They are there - waiting for their chance. Would you know one if you saw one - and do you have the command climate and ability to give them the opportunity to succeed?

As a final note; the last USS CUSHING (DD-985) was decommissioned in 1995. MURTHA, CHAVEZ, GIFFORD. Go figure.

Uninspired ideas from uninspiring people

Now and then The Front Porch should lean back a bit in our rocking chairs, take a sip of a freshly mixed Sidecar, and realize that yes; we catch slings & arrows from bringing up "uncomfortable" topics here and elsewhere - sometimes we get our pee-pee whacked for going too far - but more often than not we just have to wait for the rest of the people to catch up. How many year have we been covering this topic? Over half-a-decade at least. Rowan Scarborough pulls no punches.

“It’s pretty dire,” said John Howland, a 1964 U.S. Naval Academy graduate who manages a web site on naval issues called USNA-At-Large.

... “The leadership of the military is pretty much politically correct kind of stuff. You like to think that we’re approaching hitting bottom, but these people are not through with us yet.”
...
“Mabus is an unequivocal disaster,” Mr. Howland said.
...
“His service was difficult, because Cesar Chavez faced a segregated Navy, but that challenge like others he faced in his life, helped forge the leader he became,” he said at the naming ceremony in San Diego May 18.

“His example blazed a path for subsequent generations. His example will live through this ship. He will continue to inspire young Americans to do what is right.”

Mr. Chavez was a champion of better working conditions for farm laborers. He enlisted in the Navy in 1946 at age 17. He later called it “the worst two years of my life,” according to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican, who saw action in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine officer, believes Mr. Mabus made a political decision.

“This decision shows the direction the Navy is heading,” said Mr. Hunter.

“Naming a ship after Cesar Chavez goes right along with other recent decisions by the Navy that appear to be more about making a political statement than upholding the Navys history and tradition.”

Last week, Mr. Hunter introduced legislation directing the Navy to name the next available ship after Marine Corps Sgt. Rafael Peralta. Sgt. Peralta was killed when he fell on a grenade during combat in Fallujah, Iraq, and was awarded the Navy Cross.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Mabus did not return a reporter’s phone messages.

The Chavez was the second Lewis-and-Clark class cargo ship that Mr. Mabus named after a civil rights leader.

In 2009, Mr. Mabus announced a ship would be named after Medgar Evers, the Mississippi civil rights activist who was shot and killed in the drive way of his home in 1963. Mr. Evers had no professional connection to the Navy. He served two years of combat in Europe in World War II and was honorably discharged an Army sergeant.

Before the Chavez and Evers namings, most of the other 12 Lewis-and-Clark ships were named after Navy pioneers. They include retired admiral and astronaut Alan Shepard and Arctic explorer Adm. Robert E. Peary. One ship is named the USS Carl Brashear, after the Navy’s first black master diver.

There are four exceptions: the explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who were commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson; their guide, Sacajawea; aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart; Dr. Charles Drew, who developed a system of life-saving blood banks during World War II.

Would it be petty to state that Rowan should have CDRSalamander on his RSS feed? Yes, but I'll do it anyway.

Hat tip Mike.

USNS Cesar Chavez?

All the usual subjects are hashing it out at USNIBlog.

What a great ticklefight - check it out.

Giving Uncle Sam the finger

Hey, we deserve it.

A conservative rancher named Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo took the Honduran presidency in elections Sunday, five months after the country's last elected president was forced out of the country at gunpoint. Now Hondurans must wait to see if the international community, which has been divided over the crisis, accepts the winner as legitimate.

The results gave Mr. Lobo 56% of the vote, well ahead of Liberal Party candidate Elvin Santos at 38%, confirming voters' expected punishment of the Liberals -- party of both the deposed president and the interim government that ousted him.
...
About 61% of eligible Hondurans voted, and turnout, which was up from 2005, was seen as a crucial factor in persuading more countries to back the vote. The turnout was a loss for Mr. Zelaya, who had urged supporters to boycott the election.

To our great national shame, we sided with the anti-democratic Left in Honduras with Chavez and the Castro brothers.

We did not side with the Honduran Supreme Court, its democratically elected legislature, and its Constitution.

Good for little Honduras. When Uncle Sam finds himself on the same side as the likes of Chavez and Castro - perhaps he should reconsider.

Where is Hugo standing?

Oh, he is with the deposed President of Honduras.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday put troops on alert after a coup in Honduras and said he would respond militarily if his envoy to the Central American country was kidnapped or killed.

Chavez said Honduran soldiers took away the Cuban ambassador and left the Venezuelan ambassador on the side of a road after beating him during the army's coup against his leftist ally, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.

The Honduran army ousted Zelaya and exiled him in Central America's first military coup since the Cold War, after he upset the army by trying to win re-election.

In that case, I'll stand with the Honduran military. I like my bastard better. Lefty wanted to remain in power unconstitutionally - and the military said, "No."

I'm ok with that. Hold the elections on time in 2010 an in the meantime put the next in line in the seat --- and all will be forgiven. If the military tries to stay in power, then to h311 with them.

---

UPDATE:I don't like this initial reaction by out SECSTATE. Why are we on the same side as Hugo and Fidel?

Yesterday the Central American country was being pressured to restore the authoritarian Mr. Zelaya by the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton and, of course, Hugo himself. The Organization of American States, having ignored Mr. Zelaya's abuses, also wants him back in power.
...
It's not surprising that chavistas throughout the region are claiming that he was victim of a military coup. They want to hide the fact that the military was acting on a court order to defend the rule of law and the constitution, and that the Congress asserted itself for that purpose, too.

Mrs. Clinton has piled on as well. Yesterday she accused Honduras of violating "the precepts of the Interamerican Democratic Charter" and said it "should be condemned by all." Fidel Castro did just that. Mr. Chávez pledged to overthrow the new government.

What did Zelaya do?

That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.

The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.

Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court's order.

The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out.

...and the Hondurans?

Honduras is fighting back by strictly following the constitution. The Honduran Congress met in emergency session yesterday and designated its president as the interim executive as stipulated in Honduran law. It also said that presidential elections set for November will go forward. The Supreme Court later said that the military acted on its orders. It also said that when Mr. Zelaya realized that he was going to be prosecuted for his illegal behavior, he agreed to an offer to resign in exchange for safe passage out of the country. Mr. Zelaya denies it.

Many Hondurans are going to be celebrating Mr. Zelaya's foreign excursion. Street protests against his heavy-handed tactics had already begun last week. On Friday a large number of military reservists took their turn. "We won't go backwards," one sign said. "We want to live in peace, freedom and development."

Besides opposition from the Congress, the Supreme Court, the electoral tribunal and the attorney general, the president had also become persona non grata with the Catholic Church and numerous evangelical church leaders. On Thursday evening his own party in Congress sponsored a resolution to investigate whether he is mentally unfit to remain in office.

I think Mary O'Grady in the WSJ is right, the Hondurans that threw Zelaya out of the country are patriots. Our government is close to being on the wrong side of history.

If we stick to the vaporish words of the CINC,

"I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference," Obama said.

... is about right. Unlike the first quote above, this is better from the SECSTATE,

"We call on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law, to reaffirm their democratic vocation, and to commit themselves to resolve political disputes peacefully and through dialogue," Clinton said in a statement.

Maybe we can stay on the right side of history and not join Hugo. In the end though, the Hondurans seem to have things under control.

You can't buy training like this ...

I say great. Throw in some old school REFTRA out of Guantanamo Bay - and then you have something worth getting underway for.

The Interfax news agency has reported that a Russian Air Force chief says Venezuela's president has offered an island as a temporary base for strategic Russian bombers.

The agency reported that chief of staff of Russia's long range aviation Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev said Saturday that President Hugo Chavez had offered "a whole island with an aerodrome, which we can use as a temporary base for strategic bombers."

The agency quoted Zhikharev as saying, "If there is an corresponding political decision, then the use of the island ... by the Russian Air Force is possible."

Interfax reported he said earlier that Cuba could be used to host the long-range planes.

No one is going to go to war about this and unless you are talking about Regiment sized formations, a threat to no one, but if we can just get them to synch their stuff with our training schedule - then win-win for all!

From Barack to Hugo?

With permission, I have decided to post, with slight modification to keep him anon - and email from a reader who, as you will see, has an interesting take on where we are heading as a nation - or could head.

As with other people's work, I don't endorse 100% - but as I have a, ahem, bias towards both Venezuelans and Colombians - I highly recommend it.

I felt very identified with your latest piece, "2 out of 3 ain't bad".

You see... I am a native of Venezuela, and although my family has been in this country for many years, we still maintain strong American values and traditions, since we are descendants of an American Civil War Colonel.

With this brief background of mine I just want to let you know that we're sad and worried regarding this election result. We are still suffering on a daily basis the ill choice made by many to vote for Hugo Chavez, and I am afraid I'm seeing the American people lead the way into repeating this very same catastrophic mistake. When people cast a vote just by following their emotions, failing to discern the wheat from the chaff and failing to break away from the hypnosis caused by the siren's song populists like Obama are experts in singing, then anything is possible and a Dark Age is sure to follow.

Surprisingly, ignorance is no stranger to many Americans it seems, definitely an inevitable human condition which comes to bite us in the rear regardless of which country we live in, and a true enemy of the modern world. And I believe the old say in baseball "after the error, comes a hit", applies to these situations.

When Chavez was campaigning back in 1998, he thought Castro was a communist dictator, said eradicating corruption was his goal, and even clearly distanced himself from the left. Like a chameleon, he managed to disguise his true colors to the unwary eye. And I'm not talking just native venezuelan voters, he obtained support from ignorant Clinton-administration figures like John Maisto and Madeleine Allbright. Fast forward a few years later... and we have a socialist uprising all over Latin America with no serious much less effective US counter-strategy. What's worse... Venezuela has even been funding islamic fundamentalist and other terrorist organizations such as FARC, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and ETA. Chavez has been left to play so freely that he's funding extinguished leftist movements in Central and South American (Sendero Luminoso and FMLN) and has even sent troops to openly intervene militarily in Bolivia. Now Russia and Iran have gained strategic relevance while the USA has lost influence and respect in the region.

Why am I bringing this up? Because it concerns - no, no I'll rephrase: it **creeps** me out to even wonder how life in Latin American politics will be with a State Department under the helm of Obama and a Democratic-majority congress. It was already bad with Bush as he chose to outright ignore the region, but with this new character, I fear that we will go from being ignored to being openly crushed with the approval or support of the new administration. Other aspects aren't less worrying, such as leaving Israel to their fate; giving in to terrorist demands in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Iran; failing to avoid disaster in an ever-growing muslim Africa; not to mention China... and last but not least... the rising Russians... which always enjoy having a Democrat government to play with. I'd be even more worried if I was living in the Ukraine tho'.

In the end, as you can see from my post, it's not just the US domestic matters that worry me... it's the impact that those domestic matters will have on their foreign policy. If the guy turns out to be a radical leftist and decides to force a disfavorable change upon the American people's lifestyle and values, it would be foolish to think the same won't hold true with his foreign policy, don't you think?

It would require more than a Ronald Reagan to repair the damages.

Thanks for reading, it gives me hope when I read such blogs as yours and many others... feels good to know there are good and real Americans still out there. Let's hope you never have to endure what many Venezuelans such as myself have to endure daily... sad to witness that in the long run the real damage isn't material, financial or economic...those are easily repaired; the real damage is when evil (or the Left) manages to coerce the moral base of society and the beliefs and core values of the people. That is a long term wound which may never heal.

God bless us all CDR.

I'll let you guess why he wanted me to "anonomize" his email.

All hail the King of Spain!

Amen. He said what we all wish we could.

The king of Spain told Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to "shut up" Saturday during a heated exchange at a summit of leaders from Latin America, Spain and Portugal.

Long live the King!

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UPDATE: You can see the video via a link from the BBC.

Oooooo, more training opportunities!

Yes, more please. I want to make sure all the Citgo gas I buy on base is going towards ASW Readiness.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is expected to finalise a deal on buying up to nine Russian submarines during a visit here later this month, a Russian newspaper reported on Thursday.

Caracas has already ordered five 636-type diesel submarines and four of a new model of diesel submarine, the 677E Amur, the Kommersant broadsheet said, quoting unnamed sources in the ship-building and arms export sectors.

Chavez may have to settle for the older 636 submarines for the time being as the new 677E Amur has not yet been presented to Russia's own navy, a source at the arms export agency Rosoboronexport said.

Democrats defunding another war

Colombia. Yes, I have an interest in Colombia - besides the obvious.

One of the most critical nations in our hemisphere is Colombia. Huge gains have been made to go after the Nacro-Marxists.

President Uribe is one of the best leaders South America has ever had. Sure, there have been problems and speed bumps along the way - the progress that has been made to disconnect from the entrenched Paramilitary Forces as the Colombian government steps up over the last decade has been outstanding. Slow, steady progress is being made against the longest running Communist insurgencies on the planet.

Colombia is a front line state against Hugo Chavez. All trends are going the right way - in a way that is good for America.

Well, we can't have that - can we?

Sen. Patrick Leahy last week put a hold on $55.2 million in military aid to Colombia, citing the increasing number of reports of collaboration between Colombian officials and right-wing paramilitaries. The scandal, widely called "para-politics," has rattled Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's government, hurting the president both in Colombia and in the United States.
...
The incidents of collaboration with paramilitaries, including the one involving Gen. Montoya, took place in 2002, the year Mr. Uribe was elected. (Several of the legislators at the time were not even Uribe supporters.) And although "para-politics" may taint Mr. Uribe's government, it doesn't change the fact that Colombia is safer, more peaceful and on a better path since 2002. Murders have been on a substantial and fairly steady decline. Mr. Uribe quickly made good on his promises to go after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), guerrillas that at one point had amassed some 20,000 soldiers. By increasing the size of Colombia's security forces, Mr. Uribe was able to weaken FARC, particularly in central Colombia, and was also able to negotiate the deal with the paramilitaries.
...
Democrats, Mr. Leahy included, have in the past been critical of U.S. aid to Colombia, so it's a little surprising that he now would put a hold on military assistance. This is clearly a mistake. U.S. aid is essential for Colombia to secure the progress that has been made -- progress that represents a small success story in Latin America. Democrats would be wrong to undermine U.S. support now.

Help Colombia help itself and all we will have to do is watch and advise. Let Colombia fall in to anarchy and loss - and there will be a nightmare in the making - more of a nightmare.

Moronic Convergence

I'm watching it on CSPAN so you don't have to. I haven't been from the start, and I don't know how long I can do it. But without commentary - and without Gathering of Eagles because CSPAN won't show them. Look up the names and organizations if you really need to know who these are. Communists, terrorists fellow travelers and useful idiots. Keep up, I will update as it goes on. Refresh when needed. Too bad it wasn't a Global Warming rally.

New Orleans. Haliburton. Capitalism. Cuba. Workers (undocumented and otherwise). Socialism. Militarism. Palestine. Congress. Bush. The People. Resistance. Brothers and Sisters. Hugo Chavez. Don't pay your taxes. I'm cold.

Yawn.

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Oh, that last thin crowd shot. 3, yes count them, 3 minutes after the last yapping from the podium. Pathetic

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UPDATE: It has been WAY to long since I last linked to my friend Baron Bodissey at Gates of Vienna. He was there and has a great report. Michelle does as well. If you just want to be mad - well, read the WaPo.

Mexico rises - Venezuela dies

The importance of elections. Calderon is turning out to be much better than even I hoped. The weight that is smothering Mexico is corruption and crime. Nothing else will be fixed until you attach these. Mexico is taking hard steps - this is very good news. A strong Mexico is a strong USA.

Days after taking office Dec. 1, Calderón announced Operation Michoacán by sending 7,000 military and federal officers into his home state. "This is a very difficult battle,"said Army Gen. Manuel García Ruiz, who heads Operation Michoacán, at the airfield of the Lázaro Cárdenas Airport before a recent drug raid. "It will last as long as it is necessary.
...
Calderón has also opened new fronts in the border city of Tijuana and the Pacific resort town of Acapulco. He sent 3,300 soldiers and federal police to Tijuana and 7,600 troops and police to Acapulco this month.

The US has, thus far, voiced optimism. "We certainly are supporting [Calderón's] moves to try to do something about the issues of drug trafficking; not only does it affect his country but it affects the US as well," says Christy McCampbell, the deputy assistant secretary in the US State Department's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.
...
Calderón has transferred 10,000 military personnel to the federal police, and promised raises to the lowest paid members of the armed forces.
...
Calderón has promised to root out corruption, particularly among the local police. In Tijuana, for example, the 2,300-strong local police was made to relinquish their arms when the military moved in to patrol streets and set up checkpoints.
...
Calderón has also voiced support of an overhaul to the legal and penal systems, cleaning up legal codes and stiffening criminal sentences, and moving toward oral trials to bring more transparency to the judiciary, says Ackerman. Currently, almost all trials are written, making them more secretive and vulnerable to corruption.
...
Last week, Calderón told the Financial Times newspaper that the US must do more to help Mexico achieve success. "The [US] is jointly responsible for what is happening to us ... in that joint responsibility the US government has a lot of work to do."

Michael Shifter, vice president of policy at the Inter-American Dialogue, points out parallels between Calderón's efforts and those of Colombia's President Álvaro Uribe, who has received more than $7 billion from the US in recent years for his country's war on drug trafficking. "Uribe tapped into a real sentiment that was widely held in Colombia, where insecurity had just become intolerable for people," Mr. Shifter says. "Somebody had to take charge. Calderón senses the same thing in Mexico in 2007."

Calderón has already started trumpeting security improvements. "Today Mexico has more peace and certainty than at the beginning of my term, and that fills me with satisfaction," he said recently at a press conference.

We should do everything we can to help Mexico - as we should Colombia.

Meanwhile we watch Venezuela destroy itself.

Venezuela's Congress on Wednesday granted President Hugo Chavez powers to rule by decree for 18 months as he tries to force through nationalizations key to his self-styled leftist revolution.

Opposition politician and newspaper editor Teodoro Petkoff on Tuesday wrote an editorial in his Tal Cual newspaper drawing parallels between the enabling law and Cuban Communism and European fascism in the 1930s.

Hernandez, of the Venezuelan Communist Party, rebuffed such charges.

"When our enemies say we are granting dictatorial powers to Chavez, they know that they are lying," he said.

They should get nothing.

Here, ruin your weekend

Over at The Corner, I think Mark Krikorian has officially thrown in the towel.

Since it seems fairly certain to me now that we're going to end up evacuating Baghdad's green zone from the embassy roof in helicopters, what I'm worried about is the much more significant "surge" we're going to have to deal with — Iraqi refugees, virtually all of them our Sunni enemies, being resettled by the hundreds of thousands in the United States.

And you thought the "Dog drank my Vodka in the Taxi" kerfuffle was bad.

Quitter.

He points the way to Thomas Friedman - who I rarely agree with - who mentions some a very small bit of common ground that I think we can agree on.

...tell Americans that you’re creating a $45-a-barrel floor price for imported oil, so investors can safely finance alternatives without worrying that they’ll be undercut by OPEC.

..almost. We could do a lot more - and better. Though I think California and Florida should join Louisiana in the offshore oil rig farming and we need more nuke plants and fewer natural gas plants - let's stick with the big piece of the pie - cars, trucks and getting to work on time.

Anyone that drives on a highway knows that, irrespective of your gas tax, that automobile gas power is heavily subsidized directly and indirectly. Offer a 100% sales tax rebate for each hybrid or alternative fuel automobile. In Europe outside the UK (see gas here and diesel here), diesel is less expensive. Why can't we make diesel less expensive here in the USA? Diesel gets better MPG (~30% better) and with modern engines, is not spewing filth like a '78 Olds. Support LNG cars by removing all federal tax from LNG - heck LPG and CNG as well.

Of course, I have my own personal solution. Ahem.

The above is a start. I don't know about you, but I am getting tired of sending my money to Hugo Chavez and the Saudi royal family.

Pinochet passes on

Ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973-1990 and spent his old age fighting human rights, fraud and corruption charges, died on Sunday a week after suffering a heart attack, Chilean television reported.

Pinochet, 91, grabbed power in a coup and went on to become the best known of the South American dictators of the 1970s and 1980s.

In a world full of Stalins, Hitlers, Pol Pots and their ilk - Pinochet never bothered me all that much. We are very lucky here in the U.S.A. We were never threatened with a Marxist taking freedom and power. That is where Chile found itself. Who in America would have stepped in if we had? What would that person have done?

Anyway, it would be a huge stretch to call Pinochet a hero of mine, I have no use for dictators of any stripe - but I wouldn't feel the need to curtail my libertarian instinct to attack Pinochet if my friends on the Left got half as excited about that butcher Castro than they do Pinochet. At least Pinochet walked away leaving his nation with a democratic system, a functioning judiciary, and the best economy in South America. Do you think that will happen when Castro leaves for his judgement? Hey while we are at it, how does he compare to Castro?

Le Rapport Rettig de 1991 estime que pendant les 17 années (1973-1990) de la dictature du général Pinochet, 3.197 victimes de violences du régime sont mortes ou ont disparu. Le second rapport Valech diffusé en Juin 2005 relève, lui, 29.000 cas de torture avérée. Des milliers de Chiliens ont quitté leur pays.

En 2000, la Cour suprême avait privé Pinochet de son immunité d'ancien président, ouvrant la voie à son procès. Il était inculpé pour 75 meurtres et enlèvements.

Les jeunes ne portent pas de T-shirts à l’effigie du général.

Let me help you non-FAO types out.

The 1991 Rettig Report Rettig determined that during the 17 year dictatorship of General Pinochet (1973-1990), there were 3,197 dead or disappeared victims of official violence. A second Valech report broadcast in June 2005 reported that 29,000 torture cases have been proven. Thousands of Chilean citizens left their country.

In 2000, the Supreme Court had deprived Pinochet of his former president immunity, opening the way for prosecution. He was charged for 75 murders and abductions.

Young people do not wear T shirts with a picture of the general.

Let's put Chile under Pinochet next to Cuba from another report.

Estimates of those killed
-----------Low-----Mid-----Upper
Chile-----2,000---10,000---30,000
(1973-87)
Cuba-----35,000---73,000--141,000
(1959-87)

If Pinochet did nothing, odds are that you could add a zero or two to the Chilean total - and Allende would be hosting Castro and Chavez as official guests - in a zero sum world that never exists.

He may have been a son-of-a-b1tch butcher - but in some twisted way he was freedom's SOB. If they had a vote, I think most Cubans would have rather had the Chilean experience instead of their own miserable island gulag. Just a thought.

Hat tip No Pasaran.

Know a man by the books he reads

Hugo Chavez recommends Noam Chomsky.

Perfect. Beyond satire. It is good to know that I am on the Right side of things.

Hat tip Drudge.