A Return to the Profane - for Freedom's Sake

If you don't think this has anything to do with national security, you are a fool.

If you don't this this is a topic worth your time, you are an idiot.

If you in any way try to say anything close to, "What did they expect? They should be more careful." then you are part of the problem.

Most of the new listeners probably don't know - but this isn't my only blog on blogspot. No, I have another one.

When you click to it, you'll get this;

Content Warning

Some readers of this blog have contacted Google because they believe this blog's content is objectionable.

Why would anyone find something I would do objectionable enough to complain to google (owner of blogger)? Well simply, my little side blog was in the first batch of internet addresses to be banned by Pakistan nine years ago. The Islamist trolls took it from there. 

Sure, there is a little frontal nudity ... but that isn't what they objected to.

The blog? Since 2006, DrawMohammedWeek, of course. I started it on a whim to show just how difficult it would be to contain what the Islamic fundamentalists were trying to kill their way to silence in the wake of the Danish cartoon kerfuffle.  

With new media, anyone can reach the world in less than a few minutes and as a result, anyone can draw Mohammed and have that image on a computer all the way to Mecca if they wanted ... and I did. Sadly, a lot more turtles pulled their heads in their shells than lions of liberty roared, but I made my point.

Every threat to liberty and the spirit of man by the most retrograde force on the planet today - radical Islam - must be opposed. They threaten the very basic nature of the West - free expression.

When someone tries to shut you up, yell louder. It is what a free people do.

From the bullies trying to silence everyone with the "microaggression" BS, to the other bullies on college campus with their speech codes, to those who went in to the offices of Charlie Hebdo and opened fire - they are all the same. They are the jackboot fantasying forever to kick in the face of individual liberty. Liberty to speak - and more importantly - liberty to offend others.

So, I would ask you to not just look at this one cover of Charlie Hebdo on this post, visit my little protest blog DrawMohammedWeek and look at their greatest hits. Look what people died for.

The attack on them was an attack on everyone who loves freedom. This will happen again, it is only a matter of when.

You see - I thought the attacks on Van Gogh would open people's eyes. I thought Ayaan Hirshi Ali's persecution would do it. I thought the London and Madrid attacks would. I thought Ft. Hood would ... but no. I guess there isn't enough blood yet.

“I'd rather be standing up than live on my knees.” Charlie Hebdo leading cartoonist Charb.

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UPDATE: Outstanding commentary on the empty "Je suis Charlie" out there by Matt Welsh over at Reason, and always - his royal awesomesause Rusty Shackleford over at Jawa.

Want national doctrine? Well, Russia seems to have one ...

I'm going to assume this is ligit, but it seems some nice person we can presume to be "Thomas Moore" has translated the 2014 Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation.

Not a long or excessively detailed document - and so general to be at best almost cliche, there is here and there a few items of interest. It is helpful to remind you of the Russian mindset.

For instance:
(1) How do you feel about NATO?

2. The main external military dangers: a) capacity power potential Organizations North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and giving it global functions carried out in violation of international law, the approach of military infrastructure countries - members of NATO to the borders of the Russian Federation, including through further expansion of the block;

(2) In times of conflict, these priorities are of note.

33. The main tasks of the Armed Forces, other troops and authorities during the immediate threat of aggression: a) implementation of a set of additional measures, aimed at reducing the threat of aggression and increasing level of combat and mobilization readiness of the Armed Forces purpose of strategic deployment; b) maintaining a nuclear deterrent established degree of readiness; c) the strategic deployment of the Armed Forces; d) participation in ensuring the martial law regime; e) implementation of measures for territorial defence, and the performance of the established order of measures to civil defence; f) the fulfilment of international obligations of the Russian Federation for collective defence, reflection or prevention in accordance with international law an armed attack on another state, refer to The Russian Federation requested.

Basically; "Love your nukes, control your own people; keep the near abroad under your umbrella."

Here is the whole thing; enjoy!

Russia's 2014 Military Doctrine by ThomasMoore

USMC to sea; back to the future

Looks like the USMC is getting remarried to the non "L" fleet. 

A little something old, a little something new, a little something borrowed, a little something blue.  What it has a lot of is goodness.

With a too small amphibious fleet and the positive aspects of a distributed ability to have forces in place to respond to short notice national security requirements - this move is to be welcomed and encouraged.

BZ to those who led the long march back to ... well ... in a fashion, something out Marines have always done, and done to great affect.

Via Joshua Stewart;

If Marines become fixtures on ships of Military Sealift Command, carriers, and surface combatants, they'll have a type of sea duty that's different from the deployments they've had on amphibious ships. They wouldn't be in a Marine expeditionary unit embarked on gators alongside thousands of other Marines, but rather with sailors who aren't used to deploying with leathernecks.
....
"We will evaluate and experiment with Marine detachments on ships other than amphibious vessels such as afloat forward staging bases, destroyers, littoral combat ships, mobile landing platforms, and joint high-speed vessels," they wrote in the June 2013 issue of the U.S. Naval Institute's June 2013 Proceeding Magazine.

That concept was also mentioned in Expeditionary Force 21, a long-term Marine Corps planning policy that emphasizes maritime missions and recalibrating the service after the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan.

Experimentation is good, but there are some things to keep in mind - always think about what happens when the enemy decides to shoot back.

The CSIS study also warns that putting Marines on non-combatants come with a unique set of risks and limitations. MSC ships are less survivable than amphibious ships and they have poor defenses. They also have limited support, they don't have the same command and control capabilities, nor can they do intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

Also, if Marines are on non-combatants, legal restrictions and treaties could limit the types of missions that they undertake, the study states.

Despite these shortfalls, the report said that non-amphibious ships can still help Marine missions, especially humanitarian relief efforts or bilateral training events. They might also be good options for chasing low-threat drug runners.

And following the recent experiments, Corps officials are trying to determine what Marines could do from other types of vessels, Wheeler said.

"Right now we have tested concepts from three vessels," he said. "We are expanding this concept and developing capabilities with additional platforms in the future."

Good. Good. Especially having USMC detachments back on CVN and DDG/CG.

Standard issue leftist cognitive dissonance

OK, this is getting to be fun.

The left is now officially beclowning itself.

The Salamander nominee in the category for weak cheese useful idiocy goes to ...

This seems to have been interpreted by the BBC’s producers as a signal that North Korea’s Juche scholars had abandoned Marxism in favor of something else entirely. Some might even call this critical analysis a form of “Kremlinology,” but that term is loaded with socialist implications.

“North Korea has a higher share of the population in uniform than Nazi Germany and fascist Italy had until the Second World War,” said Brian Myers, an American professor of international studies at South Korea’s Dongseo University. “So, I think it’s much more accurate to look at North Korea as a far-right state. An ultra-nationalist state.”

Here, watch it yourself. Go to the 4:50 point.



Ummmm, no. Communism in full flower is in North Korea. Own it left - it represents your purest workers' paradise.

Oh, in case you forgot;



Hat tip

Europe's Ripe Swedish Problem

At the end of yesterday's 5th anniversary Midrats, we briefly discussed things to look for in the new year. Each year, events happen that suddenly change the national security landscape. 

Things that after the initial shock look in hindsight as something that should have been in the "probably to possible," vice the "impossible to improbable" at the turn of the year. The Islamic State and the Ukraine crisis are two of the more recent ones that come to mind.

Where will the next one be? Well, many years in the making, I think that one crisis that should be in everyone's "probable" category is a additional and potentially rapid political disruption in northern Europe as the working and middle classes lose their patience with their political elite's inability to deal with the existential threat of massive non-Western immigration.

In the old continent, there are a variety of currents coming together in 2015 that should make one keep a close eye on what is going on in the background.

With much of the Muslim world in expanding chaos, and Sub-Saharan Africa unable to grow its economy to match its population, even more that before, 2015 will be a year where population migration from the poor, corrupt and violent prone south to the north will grow and in some cases, further set the seeds for conflict in the nations they are migrating to.

The hard reality of human nature is going to begin to push the well meaning theory of the welcoming welfare state of Europe in to a region of unsustainable and instability - if it has not already. Combine the relatively inexpensive ability to move across continents along with a very low chance of being sent back if you make it, and you have a perfect match of push and pull.

Nations can absorb a certain amount of people from different nations, religions and cultures - but you can break the system. You can take more if both the people coming want to assimilate and the nation taking them insists on it. A nation cannot take the same numbers if the people coming will not assimilate. In the past, high financial, technological, cultural, and legal barriers prevented indigestible waves of immigration - but no more. Those barriers are gone in a way that requires correction. There can be a good correction, or a bad one. If correction is done in time, it can be done in the good category. If things are allowed to continue on their path without a proper response, then in a panic and time crunch at the tipping point, no one will like what will be done to correct the problem - if it can be corrected.

As large boats drift throughout the Mediterranean Sea, waiting to come ashore; as open borders to the east and south minimize barriers to entry, and a political elite who are tuning out the concerns of its own people - and more importantly - want to make sure no one calls them a nasty name - well, where does this go?

Each nation will ultimately deal with it their own way - but to get an idea about possible reactions, look for the most vulnerable nations - those closest to the tipping point. Look for the place where the extremes are - where the most stress is - that will give you an indication of what is about to come.

Let's get some pull quotes and articles for you to read about just one nation's challenge; Sweden.

"There was a sense that our government didn't have a clear plan for how to manage immigration," says Boel Godner, the mayor of Sodertalje. "And the question that has come up lately, is, can the welfare system bear us all? What's going to happen to everyone who comes here? No one has given the answer to that yet."

For immigration to work where the people lack education, technical skill, and cultural literacy; if they come to work hard and contribute to society, most of the friction will come only from the indigenous population who are on the lower side of the economic spectrum whose wages are depressed (another reason to keep unskilled immigration at low levels, it impacts most your nation's most economically vulnerable). However - what if they come to only take?

"In the U.S., you always say that it's the land of dreams, yeah? I say it's actually Sweden," says Yakoub, who's now chairman of the Assyrian Community of Sweden. "Here you can get an education from kindergarten up to university without paying one cent. Society takes care of you because the social welfare system is good. Generally, it's an open society with good values."

Who will pay for that?

Hope is not a plan.

Andreae, Sodertalje's city manager, says he hopes Swedish politicians find concrete ways to manage immigration instead of closing its doors to war refugees. He would like to see other municipalities take in more refugees, for example, since Sodertalje's resources are now stretched.

He says he chose to work in Sodertalje in part because it reflects Sweden's openness to the world. He hopes that doesn't change.

"Because I like to think that the Swedes still are a very tolerant people," he says. "But of course, when you are challenged in that view, when things are happening, that situation can move, and it can move quite rapidly."

At the end of the last decade, I had a Swedish Lt.Col. tell me what he saw in his nation's future - he saw blood. 

He spoke of the same, "...move quite rapidly" that Sodertalje mentions above. He saw the cowardly politicians refusing to do anything until it was too late ... and then he warned that there would be dark times. So far, the trend line is going exactly in that direction. Who can the Swedes blame? Who will they turn to?

SD is deemed anathema, so no party bargains with it to pass legislation, not even indirectly through the media. Both Left and “Right” seek to isolate and discredit it. Nevertheless, SD has played kingmaker on certain crucial legislation, particularly the annual budget. In keeping with its policy to drive from power every government that refuses to reduce immigration, it brought down an Alliance for Sweden government in early 2014. Recent weeks saw a repeat of this scenario, when SD joined the Alliance in opposing the leftist budget, forcing the government to call for elections in March 2015.

But then something remarkable occurred: The two major blocs compromised not only on the current budget, but also on future budgets and power-sharing all the way to 2022. The left and “right” alliances worked out trade-offs so that elections need not take place in March, allowing the Left to rule until 2018, with the “Right” possibly taking over from 2018 until 2022. Not only does this political cartel deprive SD of its pivotal role but, short of winning a majority of parliamentary seats in 2018, it has no meaningful legislative role for the next eight years, during which time the immigration issue is off the table.

Poorer. Less educated. More violent. Domestic strife. That is the future the Swedish politicians are setting up their own country for.

The relentless stream of migrants to Europe — propelled by the war in Syria and turmoil across the Middle East and the Horn of Africa — has combined with economic troubles and rising fear of Islamic radicalism to fuel a backlash against immigrants, directed most viciously at Muslims.

The simmering resentments and suspicions have driven debates across Europe about tighter controls on immigration. Worries about immigration have helped buoy right-wing parties in Britain, Denmark, France and Hungary. German officials recorded more than 70 attacks against mosques from 2012 to 2014, including an arson, and the police in Britain have recorded an increase in hate crimes against Muslims. There are few places where the turn against immigrants is more surprising than Sweden, where a solid core of citizens still supports the 65-year-old open door policy toward immigrants facing hardship that has long earned international respect for the country.

On Friday, hundreds of Swedes gathered outside the royal palace in Stockholm and in other cities to show solidarity with the Muslim population a day after an unknown assailant threw a bottle filled with flammable liquid at a mosque in the northern city of Uppsala and sprayed racist slogans on the building. The firebomb caused no injuries and did not damage the building.

But as each day brings more reports of immigrants who have boarded ships and sneaked across European borders, the famous tolerance of the Swedes is being tested as never before.

Despite a lackluster economy, Sweden was third behind only Germany and France in the number of people registering for asylum in 2012, according to the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. Relative to its population, Sweden received the second-highest share of asylum applications in the European Union after Malta, the institute says.
Continue reading the main story

The Syrian conflict has boosted the number of asylum seekers. Of 81,000 people seeking asylum in Sweden in 2014, roughly half were from Syria,

More than ever, there is a warning Mark Steyn gave that everyone in the West needs to keep in mind as this growing wave heads our way from the failed parts of the world;

If the political culture forbids respectable politicians from raising certain topics, then the electorate will turn to unrespectable ones.

It doesn't have to be this way. Smart, humane, and economically sound policies are out there to keep things manageable without asking a people to commit cultural suicide or to turn to their darker natures to preserve their unique culture.

However, we are dealing with people of the political left here. They will destroy their neighbor's house and their own just to prove to themselves that they are ... well ... what they are.

As the world continues to suffer from conflicts and political extremism, Sweden received the most asylum applications in the world from 2009 through 2013, according to the U.N. refugee agency, and the country expects that the number of asylum seekers in 2015 will break records. "Our society should be prepared to receive between 80,000 and 105,000 asylum seekers in 2015," said Sweden's Migration Board, the government agency in charge of handling immigration issues. Sweden's refugee policy is also praised by many international humanitarian agencies, as it stepped up its efforts for Syrians by granting permanent residency to refugees fleeing the conflict. In light of the worsening humanitarian crisis in Syria, Sweden opened its borders to all Syrian asylum seekers by granting them permanent residency.

However, Sweden's liberal policy towards refugees has resulted in decreasing tolerance in Swedish society toward immigrants. In the face of a massive influx of refugees and asylum seekers, Swedish nationalism has been on the rise, as far-right groups are deeply critical of the center-left government's policies towards immigration. The Swedish Democrats, a nationalist party that is also the third largest, favors deep cuts to immigration, as there have been growing hostilities towards immigrant communities.

Clever political games that lets the problem grow while bottling up political redress of grievances? Not smart. Facts like this are hard to ignore - and dangerous for politicians to try to hide for long.

Statistics concerning ethnicity and religion when it comes to criminals are not to be found in the world’s most politically correct country with probably the fastest-growing share of Muslims: Sweden. The risk of being raped in Sweden during one’s lifetime is one out of four, which is probably equal to the risk of being raped in any other country under Muslim attack. When it comes to rapes, Islamized Sweden is already in a state of war. If we want to have a hint about who is committing these tens of thousands of rapes and other types of sexual assaults yearly, we can turn to another Scandinavian country, Sweden’s neighbor Norway, the country most similar to Sweden. Here 100 percent of all rapes in the last five years in Oslo were committed by immigrants from “non-Western” countries. In Stavanger, a major Norwegian city, 90 percent of rapes are committed by “immigrants.”

What is one thing 'ole Sal watching in 2015? The immigration crisis in Europe is unsustainable and things cannot stay the same. This will cause conflict, in what form, where, and towards whom? Ahhh ... that is the tricky bit.

One way or another, be glad you have a USA passport. We have out own immigration issues ... but nothing like over there.

Where to? Other nations, those who have a problem but not as bad as Sweden (that is getting worse). The Netherlands started its turn back to a more restrictionist policy a few years ago, and may avoid the extreme strife that Sweden seems to be setting itself up for.



Sad thing is, those who are making that huge risk to leave their horrible nations behind are very real people with very real concerns. If I were born in their nations, I wouldn't want to live there either. 

That being said, small nations who have over centuries built a civil society that is a magnet to the world are under no obligation to let those centuries of hard work be destroyed by letting themselves be swamped by waves of others coming to take. No nation is obliged to commit suicide so pampered UN bureaucrats can say nice things about them.

Midrats 5th Anniversary Show

A live free for all, open-min, open phone Midrats 5th Anniversary show!

Please join us today at 5pm Eastern, as EagleOne and I take some time to discuss 2014, what we see for 2015 - and in general that state of the national security conversation.

Join us live if you can with the usual suspects in the chat room and offer up your questions for our guest, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio. 

If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here.

Listen to internet radio with Midrats on Blog Talk Radio

Fullbore Friday

Quit? That is what other people do.

I wonder how well he is known in his own nation. It really doesn't matter, I think. Anyone who has worn the uniform should be able to look to this officer and simply say, "Mensch."

Via TheDailyMail;

Japan declared war on Germany and (Oberleutnant Gunther) Pluschow flew in a single-seat Rumpler Taube plane to neutral China while under heavy fire from the Royal Navy.

He obtained a false passport in the name of E.F McGarvin and boarded the SS Mongolia which left Shanghai to San Francisco on December 5, 1914.
He travelled across neutral America and obtained another false passport that proclaimed him to be Swiss national Ernst Smith.

In February 1915 he sailed from New York to British controlled Gibraltar on an Italian passenger steamer. 

He talked his way past a Royal Naval officer but was caught out by the suspicious interpreter. 

Along with other captured Germans, Pluschow was shipped to Plymouth and then on to the PoW camp at Donington Hall, where he arrived in May 1915. 

On July 4 he and fellow prisoner Oskar Trefftz broke out by climbing over two 9ft barbed wire fences, before changing clothes and walking 15 miles to Derby where they caught a train to London. 

By the next morning the men’s escape was featured in the Daily Sketch newspaper with both names and descriptions of the pair. 

They went their separate ways but Trefftz was recaptured at Millwall Docks.
Realising he had to alter his appearance, Pluschow removed his smart tie and handed his coat in at the cloakroom at Blackfriars station. 

As he handed the garment over the attendant asked him ‘What name is it?’
Without thinking Pluschow replied in German ‘meinen’ (mine). Luckily, the attendant wasn’t paying attention and wrote ‘Mr Mine’ on the receipt. 

The German then used scraped-up coal dust, boot polish and Vaseline to change his fair hair to greasy black and covered himself in soot to make him appear as a dock worker.
He wandered around the docks and on July 7 he overheard a conversation about a Dutch ship due in at Tilbury. 

He caught a train to the Essex port ...

He later swum into the Thames in a bid to reach a rowing boat to take him out to the moored ship but the current was too strong and he was washed ashore exhausted. 

He then spent four more days and nights making several attempts to row to the vessel before he was able to climb up a thick mooring rope and stow away in a lifeboat. 

When the vessel, the Prinses Juliana, docked at Flushing in Holland, he melted into the crowd of passengers before sneaking out through a door marked private. 

He was challenged by a Dutch policeman on the train from Flushing to Germany and, fortuitously, was allowed to carry on his journey despite having no identity papers.

The only German POW from WWI to escape and make it home. He died in 1931 at age 44 while exploring in Chile.