[FOREIGNPOLICY] As U.S. President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ’s national security team mulls a military intervention to oust Venezuela’s strongman president, Nicolás Maduro, the Pentagon is watching China’s commercial and financial creep in the crisis-gripped nation with growing alarm.
In an interview with Foreign Policy, Adm. Craig Faller, the four-star military officer who heads U.S. Southern Command, pointed to a Chinese disinformation campaign designed to blame the United States for the blackouts that devastated Venezuela in recent weeks.
Maduro, whose government is backed by China, Russia, and Cuba, has himself publicly accused the U.S. Defense Department of causing the blackouts. Following the power failures, Beijing offered to help the Venezuelan government restore its grid.
"China came out publicly, a state front man, implying the blackouts were attributable to U.S. cyberattacks," Faller said during a recent trip to Washington, D.C. "That is just such a blatant lie. The blackouts are attributed to Maduro’s inept leadership, corruption, inattention to his people, and lack of concern for any humanity."
The Pentagon is worried about China in other arenas as well. In the Pacific, China is building up its military capability, intimidating its smaller neighbors, and threatening Taiwan. In Africa, Beijing is using debt diplomacy to gain control of crucial ports and other infrastructure. And in Europe, the Trump administration is pushing NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... to address potential Chinese cyberthreats and commercial threats.
"I think the biggest threat to democracy and the way of life around the world is the trend that we see in China," Faller said.
He said China was trying to assert economic control in Venezuela by investing in infrastructure and providing hefty loans that Caracas would have difficulty paying back. Much of Beijing’s financial interest in Venezuela is tied to loans-for-oil deals struck between the two countries in 2007. By 2014, the China Development Bank had provided Venezuela with more than $30 billion in loans tied to oil production.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
Intelligence community has the means and the motivation to cause all the devastation to Venezuela that they can. That it's happening right when they're trying to engineer a coup? Complete coincidence I'm sure.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
04/15/2019 5:51 Comments ||
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#2
Then quit financing China with $550 billion every year.
Posted by: Pearl Brown6709 ||
04/15/2019 6:01 Comments ||
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Estwing Manufacturing Company was founded in Rockford, Illinois, in 1923 by Ernest O. Estwing (1884-1982). Estwing was an immigrant from Sweden who settled in Rockford with many other Swedish immigrants. His descendants live in Rockford. Estwing products are constructed of one solid piece of hardened tool steel for strength
#5
Hey Beso, I've got 3 of those from my days as a nail banger. The straight claw framing hammer is a 22 oz and two 16 oz curved claws for general duty. They are indestructible and great. The youngest one is 20 years old, the oldest is 48 years old.
#7
I think a heightened awareness of threats in "our back yard" is a good step in a good direction...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/15/2019 9:47 Comments ||
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#8
The straight claw framing hammer is a 22 oz
That’s the kind Mr, Wife has — for nail bangers who don’t often need to pull out badly hit nails. When hanging drywall, I use the lighter hammer with the recurved claw because of how often I need to pull nails back out again. He gave me one for my very own after we’d been working on our house for a few years.
#10
Damn, why didn't I think of that?? My wife could do that too.
for nail pulling I prefer a cat's paw to get a tough one started or the straight claw and another hammer to get started and for the really tough ones, a crow bar.
Using the big one to hang strapping on the ceiling was serious exercise. 8^)
[American Thinker] The first overt sign of the trouble that lies ahead for Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat leadership with the emergence of a radical Muslim wing of the party arrived Saturday.
Following the discovery of a video clip of Rep. Omar referring to 911 as "some people did something," the blowback has been fierce, including in deep blue New York City, where the wounds of death and destruction (and lingering health issues among first responders) still are very painful. Rep. Tlaib is not happy with what she perceives as inadequate support for her fellow Muslima in Congress, and extended the criticism on this specific issue by another Twitter user into a broader attack on the party leadership:
To say that Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ihan Omar have chips on their shoulders would be an understatement. Both women embrace the notion of Muslim victimhood in a party that stokes the grievances of a variety of minorities who are encouraged to see themselves as victims and seek balm in the form of concessions from the majority. When the interests of these subgroups clash, the standard operating procedure of the Dems has been to co-opt the minority leadership and have them smooth over those conflicts in favor of the goodies that come from unity at the expense of the malign majority against whom they nurse their wounds.
But when religion becomes the basis for grievance, and when the radical version of that religion seeks as its sacred mission the destruction of an existing state and the imposition of a global theocracy based on its dogma, compromise becomes much more difficult.
[DAWN] AROUND a hundred years ago, Afghan emir Abdul Rahman declared war on the Hazara ...a grouping of Dari-speaking people of Sino-Tibetan descent inhabiting Afghanistan and Pakistain. They are predominantly Shia Moslems and not particularly warlike, which makes them favored targets... people. The emir’s armies killed, raped, and enslaved thousands of Hazaras. As ’mule loads’ of severed heads made their way back to Kabul, much of the community fled to Pakistain and Iran.
Fast forward some years, and the men and women that once escaped an Afghan despot are now escaping Pakistain’s sectarian holy warriors. Where once they ran to neighbouring lands, the Hazaras now content themselves with the other end of the earth. Yet even this final flight is unsafe: scores have drowned on the way to Australia, their boats capsizing amid waves and whirlpools.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
History of violence is basically human history. Some time back there was an old copy of Guinness' book of records that was focused on that history. If I recall correctly, they calculated that in the historical record (cultures and civilization that could keep records), there had only been about 200 years of so of peace in the world. Someone somewhere at sometime was hammering on someone else.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[American Thinker] The first overt sign of the trouble that lies ahead for Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat leadership with the emergence of a radical Muslim wing of the party arrived Saturday.
