Argony

Argo won Best Picture because of its opening and ending credits. Certainly not for anything else. I mean, where's the tension? Everyone knew they would all get out.

The action was just...not. I didn't buy the whole pulled aside by the crazed airport guard (Farshad Farahat, the best actor in the whole thing) episode and the ridiculous tarmac pursuit because I had (a) never heard of these events from subsequent interviews and (b) they looked too Hollywood. Apparently, my instincts were correct.

The acting was...okay. Farahat was terrifyingly intense and quite believable, that is, until the silly tarmac chase. Alan Arkin was terrifyingly funny, as always. Ben Affleck looked like he was practicing a cameo for The Walking Dead, but you expect that. Everyone else...meh. The movie overall...meh. So, why the big deal?

Because, in the beginning, some enraged woman with a kinda Farsi accent tells us that the entire Iranian Revolution is George Bush's fault.

Not George Bush per se, but eeeevil American corporate imperialists who crushed the innocent, peace loving natural genuine aspirations of the gentle Iranian people by deposing their beloved and revered dictator, Mossadegh, and replacing him with that eeeevil Western puppet, Shah Pahlavi. That's why Iranian students stormed the Embassy almost 30 years later (took a while to get organized, because that eeevil CIA was soooo good at penetrating the students' ranks), when those eeeevil American corporate imperialists sheltered the Shah from righteous Iranian justice, all of which forced that conflicted man of action Ben Affleck, er, Tony Mendez, to Risk His Life saving the poor, innocent American embassy workers cruelly exploited by eeevil George Bush Republicans and oil companies. All, ALL! the problems in the Middle East ever since were caused by this! Grrrr!!

What rot.

Mossadegh was a dictator who liked to nationalize private property. Should he have been coup'd? No, of course not, but the issue in 1979 was Islamic radicalism, not political orientation. Even Mossadegh would have been overthrown by the fundamentalist Revolutionary Guard. Islamists don't like Marxists any more than they like capitalists.

Jimmy Carter's voice-over at the end, claiming he got the hostages released without resorting to violence is, of course, the ultimate liberal fantasy. It was the promise of violence from the incoming Reagan administration that convinced the Iranians to let our people go. 

But that would be an inconvenient truth.

And would mean no Academy Award.

Bumps in the ground

No briefing. No phone calls. No interest.

That pretty much sums up Barack Obama's involvement with the Benghazi attack. Panetta told him about it during a pre-scheduled afternoon brief and then...crickets. Barry couldn't be bothered. Gotta go to Las Vegas, ya know, got that election thing, ya know. Dead ambassador? Eh, he knew the risks.

No, apparently, he didn't.

See, Ambassador Stevens believed, like any American who opts for public service, that the US government had his back. The US would exercise rights of sovereign territory over its consulates and personnel because, heck, a diplomatic corps cannot operate, otherwise. It's just standard governmental practice.

But on 11 Sep 12, Ambassador Stevens discovered that was no longer true. No help came. Leon and his Joint Chief wrung their hands and consulted some charts and well, we're sorry, just can't do it. No one called the wing commander of Sigonella Air Base to put some assets in the air. The rescue team from Tripoli landed at the Benghazi airport and just stayed put, waiting for a bus or to clear Customs, who the hell knows? Rescue teams from other countries flew here and there and landed and here and there, but nowhere near Benghazi. Doherty and Woods called and called for help, still foolishly believing, like Amabassador Stevens did, that their Commander-in-Chief would help them.

But he had a campaign event to get to. So, he told Leon to take care of it, and went to bed. Unbothered. Unconcerned. Probably slept great.

Because the lives and deaths of individuals just aren't important in the great scheme. When there's a Marxist utopia to be built, graves get dug- here and there an individual, at other places, mass ones. Barry and Mao and Lenin and Stalin, shoulder to shoulder, looking with satisfaction at those long, long lines of disturbed earth. Onward, forever onward.

So, Hillary, what difference did it make? Well, to your boss, none. To others:

 

 

Here's Why it Matters

For weeks, Hillary, you and Barry and Susan and Leon blamed a video that some horrible person dared, DARED! to put on YouTube. Why, Hillary, you even promised a grieving family member that the horrible, horrible person who dared to put up that video would be severely punished, and there he is, in jail.

And it was all crap.

Four people died, alone and calling for help, because your buddy Barry needed to swagger around telling everyone he was SO a tough guy! Hadn't he destroyed Al Qaeda, knocked that Moammar guy right off his throne, solved the Mid East crisis, ensured Israel's future, settled all the differences with the Muslim world and just should be elected to another four years because he has done so much to secure America's, and the world's, peace?

Well, no Hillary, he hadn't. And if you and Barry and Susan and Leon had admitted that, well, your chances of getting more of those tax payer funded trips would be threatened, wouldn't it?

But it matters for another reason, Hillary, because see, four people died, alone and calling for help, not because crapheads took offense to a video. Oh, no, not at all.

They died because of you.

It is your fault. Not just as the head of a department that screwed up so badly, but as someone directly responsible for their deaths. See, a naif like you, drunk on your Peace Studies theory of engagement, with your postmodern view of American diminishment and the romance of Third World revolutionary movements, might as well have sent a written invitation to Al Qaeda to come on down and bugger a dead ambassador. See, Hillary, ideas have consequences, and your faculty lounge statesmanship caused a beast to lurch towards Benghazi.  

And I think you know that. That's why you cried at the hearing.

Guilt.

And I think you are holding to this egregiously insensitive "What difference does it make!" line because you know the honorable thing to do, the right thing to do, is resign. In disgrace. But you won't.

Because you're not honorable.

So, where was he?

Where was the President during Benghazi, and who refused to send help?

I keep asking this question. So far, no answers.

 

Now, if you read Senator Lieberman and Collins' report Flashing Red, there appears to be an answer to the last half of the question: no one refused to send help. There was no help to be sent.

 

According to the report, AFRICOM, that puzzling and new combat command which has a few problems of its own, has military responsibility for Libya. Any assets to be scrambled would come from AFRICOM inventory. The problem is that AFRICOM did not have any assets in close enough proximity to do said scrambling:

Finding 8. The Department of Defense and the Department of State had not jointly assessed the availability of U.S. assets to support the Temporary Mission Facility in Benghazi in the event of a crisis and although DOD attempted to quickly mobilize its resources, it did not have assets or personnel close enough to reach Benghazi in a timely fashion. (page 20 of Flashing Red)... 

...AFRICOM’s lack of operational assets near Benghazi hindered its capacity to evacuate U.S. personnel during the attacks. The Djibouti base was several thousand miles away. There was no Marine expeditionary unit, carrier group or a smaller group of U.S. ships closely located in the Mediterranean Sea that could have provided aerial or ground support or helped evacuate personnel from Benghazi. AFRICOM also lacked a dedicated Commander’s In-extremis Force (CIF)—a specially trained force capable of performing no-notice missions. As a result, General Ham was forced to call on the European Command’s CIF whose location in Eastern Europe prevented it from getting to Benghazi before the four Americans were killed and all other U.S. personnel were evacuated. We note that AFRICOM later received an independent CIF in October, 2012.89 DOD and AFRICOM tried to provide effective support on September 11th, but given the nature of the attack in Benghazi and the distance of their assets from Benghazi, they were tragically unable to do so. (page 21 of Flashing Red).

And Leon Panetta did give it the old college try, at least, according to the report:  

From 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. EST, Secretary Panetta met with senior DOD officials to discuss the Benghazi attack and other violence in the region in reaction to the anti-Muslim video. The Secretary directed three actions: 1) that one Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST) platoon stationed in Rota, Spain, deploy to Benghazi and that a second FAST platoon in Rota prepare to deploy to Tripoli; 2) that U.S. European Command’s In-extremis Force, which happened to be training in central Europe, deploy to a staging base in southern Europe; and 3) that a special operations force based in the United States deploy to a staging base in southern Europe. The National Command Center transmitted formal authorization for these actions at 8:39 p.m. A FAST platoon arrived in Tripoli the evening (local time) of September 12th, and the other forces arrived that evening at a staging base in Italy, long after the terrorist attack on the U.S. facilities in Benghazi had ended and four Americans had been killed. (Flashing Red, page 4) 

And well, well, it's just the logistics of the thing. Rota NAS is 2046 miles from Benghazi, about four flight hours. By the time you get everybody out of the bars, suited up and on the plane, it's about six hours. Say Panetta makes his decisions at 6 (I know, I'm being generous); the FAST doesn't get there until midnight. Okay, good, still time to kick some terrorist butt, but the FAST team didn't go to Benghazi—they went to Tripoli.  

Huh? 

The guys from Europe (I'm guessing Ramstein) had 2646 miles to travel but, it's a quicker flight, only 3 hours (prevailing winds, no doubt). So, give them the two hours to round up the boys and get gear and go, and they should have been in Benghazi by 11:00 pm,which is even more time to kick some terrorist ass.  

But they didn't go to Bengahzi. They went to Italy. 

Oops. 

All you guys who've ever been in the military understand this. Things break. Orders are muddled. Things don't work out. Couldn't be helped. Panetta shrugs his shoulders in the press conference with Dempsey. Oh well, we tried. Sorry about that. Just another bump in the road. 

Except for one thing: Sigonella NAS, Sicily. 

Sigonella NAS is 610 flight miles from Benghazi. 610. An hour and ten minutes. 

Now, it is a little difficult trying to find out what units are stationed at Sigonella. I can understand that; don't want the bad guys to know what we got. But, the site Global Security reports that Sigonella has airplanes. Lots of big, honking, airplanes. 

Why weren't those sent? 

Fortunately, Bing West, former Assistant Secretary of Defense and a man much smarter than Schlub, has already asked this question in a National Review article called "First, Aid the Living." He says that Sigonella had Special Operations forces and F18s. F18s! Imagine one of those bad boys roaring in. Craphead terrorists running for their lives. 

Yes. Imagine. 

But, they didn't. And you gotta ask why. 

Mr. West thinks it's due to "...passive groupthink..., with the assumption being that a spontaneous mob would quickly run out of steam." But I don't. I think there's other things to blame. 

First, chains of command. Panetta and Ham and all the other high falutin' commanders and administrative generals really, really believe in chains of command and assigned responsibilities and jurisdiction and territories and who gets to do what with what assets and its AFRICOM and Sigonella is not AFRICOM so, no, don't call them. Bing West got that part right because groupthink excludes  the ability to consider other options. 

But there is something far worse: zeitgeist. 

Look who you have here: Panetta, Clinton, and Obama. All of them, each damned one of them, hold the US military in complete and utter contempt. Sneering contempt. The first thing you cavemen want to do is blow stuff up and kill babies so no, NO! We're not sending any damned F18s or forces to save those two stupid ex-SEALS who disobeyed orders in the first place and deserve everything that happens to them.  

And Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty called for help. And called. And called. Frantic. Desperate. Wondering why a major tenet of US military doctrine—never abandon your troops—was being ignored. Why a second tenet—by God, send everything!—wasn't happening. And they fought and called and fought and called and died. Alone. Abandoned. 

And where were you, Barack Obama, while this was happening? 

Where were you?

 

 

Whose Fault Was It?

If you listen to Diane Feinstein and the rest of the insane left, Newtown happened because of guns. Adam Lanza brushed against one of his mother's [legal] weapons and was immediately possessed by the eeeevil Spirit of Gun-ness. Or, more on this side of sanity, if Mom didn't have all those eeevil guns, he'd only have killed 10 or 15 with an Evil Butcher Knife. So, it's the guns' fault.

No, it isn't. It's Barack Obama's fault. And Democrats. And all the rest of the Marxists.

What? What??? How is this Barry's fault?? He HATES guns! At least, in your hands.

Simple. Ideas have consequences.

Barry was  Chairman of the Chicago Annanberg Challenge, a "school reform" entity created by Bill Ayers with money from the Annanberg Foundation. The Annanberg Challenge was one more in a series of devastating body blows to the US public education system, like the self-esteem movement, the War on Boys, and the whole "learning disorders" craze. By the time the Marxist-in-Chief and his bomb-throwing pal Ayers had hijacked the Chicago schools, education was already reeling against the ropes. They kneed it in the groin, finishing it off.

And the result is a whole generation of boys, especially white middle-class boys, repeatedly hammered, each and every day, about how much of a threat and insult their manly instincts are to the real power in the world—girls. Playing cowboys and Indians at recess is proof of their innate racist and violent tendencies, making fart noises during Reading is evidence of severe educational deficiencies requiring large doses of cocaine in the form of Adderol, gayness is all the rage, manliness all the wrong, and girls really just don't need them. All the men on TV are befuddled arrested adolescents who only survive by the patient and condescending brilliance of their too-smart wives; football is brutish (oh my, you might get hurt!); weeping is good; a boy's very presence on the college campus prevents women from graduating and getting better jobs. His very presence in the workplace means the woman working next to him is automatically underpaid. His very existence is the source of all oppression.

Sullen, repressed, unhappy, guilty boys, frustrated, blamed for everything.

And you wonder why they massacre.

Buy more ammo

There is so much going on that I, truly, don't know where to focus. Not wanting to use a much-overused metaphor these days, but it's extremely difficult to pause and reflect when the car is on two tires, the brakes are on fire, and you are tumbling over the cliff side.

 

It should be very apparent to everyone by now that Barack Obama is an enemy of this country, and is absolutely intent on breaking the American economic system. That's why he came to Washington, as the front man, the vanguard of the proletariat, the culmination of a 25 year plan to bring America to its knees. It's a movie script. It's a thriller by Vince Flynn. And it's true.

 

Now, before you go off and scream "Conspiracy theorist!", let me tell you I'm not much of a believer in conspiracies. If there's one thing the Mafia has proven, two guys know a secret, then the whole world does. So, an active, plotted, conspiracy conducted over decades? No. But, an idea, people dedicated to an idea. And the damage an idea can do.

 

That idea is, of course, Marxism, which holds as its basic premise that all everyone really, really wants to do is get up before sunrise, stretch and go, "Oh boy! I get to work 18 hours today sickling wheat, and then give every bit of it to the guy in the next town! And expect absolutely nothing in return!" Uh huh. On what planet, Marxists?

 

So, you have a ridiculous idea backed by a flawed premise, that economics is the driving force of humanity, and what happens? Mass graves. We all stand here in amazement, wondering how anybody in their right mind would even entertain Marxism, yet there are whole countries (I'm looking at you, Russia) dedicated to it. And we have an administration imbued with it, a stupid, stupid idea that has proven its bankruptcy in decade after decade, country after country, slaughter after slaughter. Yet, 51% our of population voted for it. Why?

 

Simple. Because the real premise of Marxism is not economics. It's power.

 

Power over everyone, the power to tell everyone what they can do, what they can say, what they can eat, what they can watch, drive, own, think. That's what everyone really wants. It's downright sexual, and Barack Obama sits in his office, rictus grin on his face, self-righteous rage careening through his heart, gloating that an idea, a mere idea, can so corrupt an education system, a monetary system, a system of governance, that 51% of the population will, willingly, vote for their own enslavement.

 

Go to the range. Practice.

 

Mud Wrestling and Shakespeare

So Schlub and Mrs. went off to Mordor (you know it as DC) and took in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Shakespeare Theater. Out freakin' standing. The play, I mean. Not Mordor.

And that's pretty much due to two actors: Adam Green, a national treasure, and Bruce Dow, a NYC treasure. Yes, yes, the other actors/actresses (God, how sexist) were equally outstanding, but there are two roles in Dream that make or break the show: Puck and Bottom...Puck and Bottom, hmm, sounds like an odd sexual practice, but I digress.

Adam Green was Puck, and he brought his usual combination of timing and physicality, both of which makes him one of the best comedic actors on stage. I've seen him in The Liar and All's Well that Ends Well and he pretty much stole both shows; well, at least, kept up with Tony Roach in Liar. And he stole this one, too, especially in the mud wrestling scene.

Yes. Mud wrestling, something you usually don't associate with Shakespeare, but there it was. And it involved girls, Christiana Clark as Helena and Amelia Pedlow as Hermia. Wowsers. But, before you get your raincoat and empty-bottom barrel of popcorn ready, it was quite tasteful, more funny than...anything. Tasteful mud wrestling, you query? Hey, c'mon, it's Shakespeare.

Bruce Dow is, also, one of the funniest human beings on the earth, and he played Bottom's over-the-top role so over-the-top that I was on the floor. I want to see a two-man Green and Dow show.

Must give a shout-out to Tim Campbell and Sarah Topham, who played Theseus/Oberon and Hippolyta/Titiana, respectively and brilliantly. A chest bump between Oberon and Puck was a highlight. Mention of Robert Dorfman as Snug is required because he was hilarious in a very minor role. The play within the play was even funnier than the play. The ensemble was outstanding, the set was outstanding, everything was outstanding.

 

Including the mud wrestling.