REALITIES
By Martin Farrell — Thursday, December 21st, 2023
A response to Kelly Scoles' letter: Hi again, Kelly, Any past hyperbolic comments aside, I wish you a very happy Christmas and New Year. It's been enjoyable crossing swords with you over the years! **** I also await, with great trepidation, the Supreme Court's decision on whether Trump is immune from prosecution for acts now alleged to have been criminal when he was in office. If he is found to be liable today for such past activity our system of checks and balances will be crippled, and future presidents will have to constantly be looking over their shoulders when making critical decisions; more of Obama-Biden national deconstruction. Pretending Trump acted as King, or exerted omnipotence in office here is simply a ridiculous non sequitur. Biden appointments to SCOTUS will determine how much honor remains in that body. I greatly miss Antonin Scalia, the gold standard for character and intellect. How far we have fallen with Ketanji Brown Jackson, who would not define a "woman" during her hearings, camouflaging her Trans- LGBTQ (etc) agenda. Whether or not you accept the onrushing exposure of Biden culpability, Kelly, I would suggest that you store-up some emergency food and water, because those cold, hard things called facts tell us that America will be kinetically challenged by enthusiastic enemies (I believe in 2024). I hope our citizens are ready, even if our defense forces are not. Here's why: "USA smallest military in 80 years..." "Moscow glows triumphant as front freezes and Western aid for Ukraine stalls..." "The final end strength targets for the services decreased not only from last year but also from last summer, when the House and Senate Armed Services committees first proposed their goals for fiscal 2024. Senators had proposed 11,000 more personnel in the early draft of the bill. House members initially voted for almost 21,000 more. However, after the Army, Navy and Air Force all missed recruiting targets this fall, the end strength hopes for next year were dropped in the final compromise legislation. Robert Greenway, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense, believes that is a mistake." [Really?] Greenway said too few active-duty troops sends a worrisome message to would-be adversaries such as China and Russia at a time when many European allies are also shrinking the size of their fighting forces. “Instead of addressing the problem, the answer has been to move the goalposts and reduce the positions in the services,” he said." “So they are institutionalizing the problem, and that’s not a good approach.” "Service officials said they expect to face difficulty meeting their recruiting goals for next year, even with the lower targets." "Russia was [is] hiking its weapons production considerably to sustain its invasion of Ukraine, while also threatening the Baltic states, Georgia and Moldova, Boris Pistorius was quoted as saying in an interview with Welt am Sonntag." China, Iran, and N. Korea brag of new weapons as well. Nov 30, 2023 — "Faced with the prospect of a protracted war, the Russians are rearming and the West is questioning its next step. Published on November 30, 2023 ..." WARSAW — "Poland is building one of the West’s most muscle-bound militaries, on course to deploy more battle tanks than Britain, France, Germany and Italy – combined." "Credit Warsaw with a baseline of strategic sanity. It faces a revanchist enemy in Russia, which invaded Poland in 1939 and subjugated it for decades after World War II. This month, a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to eliminate “Polish statehood in its entirety.” "In 2022, China had the largest armed forces in the world by active duty military personnel, with about 2 million active soldiers." I'm out of space. I'm concerned that America is asleep. Certain verses keep nagging me: “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,” Everyone should read the full report. Remember Pearl Harbor? "This is not a drill. I repeat - this is not a drill." |