BIDEN IS NO “RALPHY”

A young boy in a winter coat and hat.President Biden Is no Ralphy. In the Christmas Movie Classic A CHRISTMAS STORY, Ralphy finally stood up to the bully ending the bully’s reign of terror. Ralphy finally dictated the terms of engagement to the bully on the playground, but Biden has not demonstrated his willingness to dictate the terms of engagement in Putin’s Russian invasion and war against Ukraine.

Biden is afraid of Putin and will not provide all weapons systems necessary for the Ukrainians to effectively defend Ukraine against the Russians, specifically Mig-29 fighter jets offered by Poland, Patriot anti-missile weapon system, and sophisticated anti-aircraft missile systems fully capable of downing Russian fighter jets. Ukrainian fighters are holding their own in the ground war, but Russian air power and missile systems are causing extensive civilian casualties and infrastructure destruction. Biden will not release the full force of the United States petroleum industry to dictate the oil supply by flooding the market and making US petroleum products available to replace or drastically reduce European dependance of Russian petroleum products, thus crippling the Russian oil industry and economy. The Biden Administration has followed the leaders of Europe regarding economic sanctions. The Administration should be clear in establishing strong secondary sanctions against all nations, including China and Iran, that support Russia and its war. Currently, the Administration’s foreign policy, Ukrainian war policy, and energy policy all show that Biden is no Ralphy.

Ralphy finally grew a pair. The question is, will Joe? If not, We the People will know that Buden is no Ralphy.

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PROGRESSIVES PREFER MURDER’S OIL

A man with his hands crossed in front of him.Progressives prefer murder’s oil over America’s oil. More specifically, the left, communists, socialists, progressives, liberals, and Democrats prefer murder’s oil over oil drilled and refined in the United States. This is based on the actions, not the rhetoric, of the left including progressives. Since oil is financing much of Putin’s Russian war against Ukraine, the west, especially the United States, needs to cut off all sales of Russian and their allies oil on world markets. This must include removal of Russian and their allies oil transactions from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) system. The Biden Administration is sending representatives or third-party negotiators, like Russia, to try to negotiate increased oil production for export to the United States from murderous dictators in counties like Iran, Saudi Aribia, and Venezuela. The Administration, including the President, is also unsuccessfully requesting increased oil exports from other Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) like the United Arab Emirates. These actions show that the Biden Administration and progressives prefer murder’s oil over America’s oil.

The Biden administration and progressives think the We the People of the United States are to stupid to understand that all greenhouse gases are the same regardless of the source of the carbon during their transition to renewable energy. Progressives also believe that energy inflation is an acceptable tool to reduce carbon energy use in the United States. Perhaps the Biden Administration and progressives are the stupid ones. They believe that it is economically sound to pay other countries, many controlled by murderous dictators, for oil. This strategy also ships good paying oil jobs to foreign countries robing We the People of these good paying jobs. Our enemies, both military and economic, use energy as a weapon. Progressives and the Biden Administration fail to understand that the United States, with the largest energy reserves in the world, especially our petroleum reserves, should use energy as a weapon to crippler or destroy the economies of our enemies, especially Russia which invaded Ukraine without provocation and is committing unprecedented war crimes against the Ukrainian people.

Unfortunately, for the United States and the world, the Biden Administration, from the President to Cabinet Secretaries and regulators in the Environmental Protection Agency, The Federal Reserve System, banking, treasury, commerce, energy, and transportation at virtually every level have stated their intent to eliminate carbon-based energy produced in the United States, especially petroleum, as quickly as possible. Â This policy eliminates the possibility of using our petroleum as a weapon against tyrants like Putin and his nation Russia. The policy also guarantees continued gas price inflation into the future, at least 2024, unless Republicans win veto proof House and Senate majorities in the 2022 elections. The energy policy of the Biden Administration demonstrates that Biden and progressives prefer murder’s oil over America’s oil.

Hopefully, Putin’s Russian invasion, war, and war crimes against Ukraine and its people will show the freedom loving, independent, democratic people of the world that that murderous dictators like Putin cannot be tolerated any longer. The free world should unite to destroy the economies of dictatorships, like Putin’s, before they have the economic power to wage wars like Putin’s Russian war against Ukraine. To accomplish this goal, the free democratic countries of the world must be unified economically by enacting true free trade agreements which excludes the dictatorships of the world.

The Biden Administration’s energy and foreign policies plans are totally inept, short sighted, and strategically lacking. The potential wars of the future are not being considered by this administration, progressives, and globalists. The Biden Administration does not understand that China and Russia are uniting to wage the current and upcoming economic energy wars. When the Biden Administration acted to immediately curtail carbon-based energy production, primarily petroleum, in the United States, Russia, the world’s third largest petroleum producer, could finance its invasion and war against Ukraine with oil revenue from the United States and the rest of the world. This was because we reduced Unites States oil production and became an importer rather than an exporter of oil. Our reduction in production reduced global supply and increased the global market price for oil increasing Russian oil profits. More actions demonstrating that progressives prefer murder’s oil over America’s oil.

In addition, the Biden Administration lacks foreign, environmental, and energy policies that ensure the long-term ability to secure the rare earth minerals and capacity to produce the Lithium-ion batteries needed to power the electric vehicles that they are forcing on We the People in the United States. However, Tesla does manufacture its lithium-ion batteries in their Panasonic plant in California. The minerals needed to produce lithium-ion batteries are lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, manganese, copper, and aluminum (bauxite). According to United States Geological Survey information summarized in the article, Where do batteries come  from? And where do they go?, the natural reserves of these minerals in the United States do not rank among the top five countries of the world. In contrast, China is among the top three producers of lithium, graphite, copper, and aluminum (bauxite), and the United States is not listed as a top producers of these minerals in the world. Additionally, according to the 2020 United Nations publication using 2018 data, COMMODITIES AT A GLANCE Special issue on strategic battery raw materials, Commodities at a Glance: Special issue on strategic battery raw materials (unctad.org), China controls trade of critical duratives of the world lithium, cobalt and manganese supplies by aggressive import of raw materials and refined exports and produces most of the world’s graphite. The 2019 article, How Electric Car Batteries Are Made: From Mining To Driving states that mining lithium and cobalt causes harmful environmental pollution, and cobalt mines in the Congo use child labor with extremely low wages and deplorable conditions. The Biden Administration foreign, environmental, and energy policies do not provide a long term strategy to secure supplies of the essential minerals needed to produce lithium-ion batteries in the United States. This failure will make our electronic vehicle industry supply chain issues controlled by military and economic enemies, especially China. Just as progressives prefer murder’s oil over America’s oil, progressives prefer enemy murder’s lithium-ion battery mineral supplies over America’s and our ally friend’s lithium-ion mineral supplies.

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PROGRESSIVES PREFER BLOOD OVER OIL

A group of soldiers running through the dirt.Progressives prefer blood over oil. More specifically, the left, communists, socialists, progressives, liberals, and Democrats prefer blood over oil. This is based on the actions, not the rhetoric, of the left including progressives. Since oil is financing much of Putin’s Russian war against Ukraine, the west, especially the United States, needs to cut off all sales of Russian and their allies’ oil on world markets. This must include removal of Russian and their allies’ oil transactions from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) system. This step would eliminate most of Russia’s oil exports as a source of financing Putin’s Russian war against Ukraine. It would also further strangle the Russian economy. This would require the Biden Administration to reverse its restrictive oil policies and return the United States to an oil exporter, not an oil importer. This action could eliminate oil imports from Russia and its allies to the United States and our allies, especially Europe. Failure to take this step will prove that progressives prefer blood over oil; and the Biden Administration, by its inaction, prefers Ukrainian blood over oil.

Progressives claim that the United States must transition from carbon energy, oil and coal, to renewable energy to save the planet at all costs, including the blood of Ukrainians. Progressives want the United States to reduce our carbon use unilaterally when they will not require the largest carbon users in the world, Russia, China, and India, to reduce their use as a precondition to reductions by the United States. Without global cooperation, the claimed reduction in greenhouse gases contributed by the United States will have an insignificant affect in reducing greenhouse gases without reductions by the world’s worst polluters. Progressives fail to understand that the United States and the world will use the same amount of carbon energy including oil during their transition regardless of the source of the oil. Progressives also believe that energy inflation is an acceptable tool to reduce carbon energy use in the United States. This is another variant of the idea that progressives prefer blood over oil because they prefer the suffering of the poor and middle class over oil. For the poor and middle class, energy inflation causses them to choose between energy and food, medicine, or other necessities. Energy inflation is like a regressive tax that adversely affects those who can least afford the added costs.

With this in mind, why should the United States pay other countries, many our enemies, for our energy when we can produce it ourselves? Imported oil also includes the added cost of tanker and other high cost means of transport of oil further raising the price of gasoline at the pump. Therefore, the United States must become energy independent, and help eliminate the need for the United States and our allies to import Russian and its allies’ oil. If the Biden Administration does not change its policies to eliminate Russian oil imports and return the United States to an energy exporter and help Europe to become far less dependent on Russian energy, then we will know that progressives prefer blood over oil by their actions.

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THE BULLY BLUEHOST

A red and white no cyber bullies signThe bully Bluehost is no different than other internet and social media bullies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. The primary service of Bluehost is Web hosting done right which includes Domain name registration and sales. Bluehost also claims that WordPress made easy is one of their services. Bluehost promotes various marketing services designed to increase traffic to businesses and Blogs. These marketing services are separate from the Bluehost webhosting services. Unfortunately, for customers, when it comes finances, the bully Bluehost links their marketing services to their webhosting services.

My saga, as it relates to the tactics of the bully Bluehost, is detailed below. The issues raised demonstrate that the internet is unfriendly to We the People. Big Tech has all the power and We the people are at their mercy under the current regulatory environment. Drastic revisions or elimination of Section 230, which protects cyber bullies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube from litigation, are essential. The United States Congress should consider legislation regulating the internet and the bias censorship of all types of social media cyber bullies

Since Section 230 is part of the Communications Decency Act contained in the Telecommunications Act, which was enacted into law in 1996, this entire law should be evaluated for revisions that protects We the People from all forms of internet bullying. In my opinion, webhosting companies offering marketing services like Bluehost’s SEO Link Building – 3 Keyword (Standard) social media link building and all non-webhosting services should be prohibited by law from deactivating a website when these services fail to fulfill their obligations to clients resulting in payment disputes. Ethically and practically marketing and all other non-webhosting services and webhosting are separate functions.

Disputes related to failures of marketing campaigns, as detailed below, and other services unrelated to webhosting should never result in website deactivation. Negotiation of all non-webhosting service failure disputes must include the possibility refunds or price reductions. Shut up and pay up or face deactivation of your website is not a business negotiation; it is a hostage negotiation. That is exactly what the bully Bluehost did to me.

This is how my saga unfolded. One of the marketing services that Bluehost provides to customers is SEO Link Building – 3 Keyword (Standard) social media link building or Full Service Design and Social Media Management. This service claims it will drive customers to your store, blog or website. Consequently, I paid for the service for over a year. The social media management group promises to accomplish this goal by posting content on a regular basis to both Facebook and Twitter. Our agreement was for two posts per week on each of my Facebook, @MCCrossroadBlogsFace, and Twitter @MCCrossroadBlog sites.

While this service did build my Facebook following to just over 1,800 people, reaching as many as 1,000 people per week, fewer than 20 people per week followed links on their posts to my Blog, America’s Crossroad. After a few months, I started discussing the fact that the Social Media campaign was not [driving} customers to [my] blog with the account manager. Her answer was always what the promotion for this service states, Getting Social Media engagement is a process and results shouldn’t be expected overnight. However, more than one year is certainly not overnight; and the service failed to drive customers to [my] blog. Additionally, the service failed to provide two posts per week for one, often two weeks, to my social media accounts about 25% of the months of our agreement. In each instance, I requested a reduction in the subsequent monthly fee to compensate for the failure to perform their posting obligations. This request was always rejected, but the subsequent number of weekly posts was increased by the number of post failures instead. Finally, the service failed to fulfill its post requirements for two weeks at the end of October 2021. On November 4, I contacted my Bluehost Social Media account manager and terminated our agreement. She told me that the number of posts missed in October would be posted in November because she could not provide a refund for the service failures. Later in November, I learned that on November 3, my credit card had been charged for services which were terminated November 4. This revelation triggered a series of events that would introduce me to the reality of the bully Bluehost.

On November 18, I checked my Facebook and Twitter sites and saw that the Social Media Management services had not made the promised postings. The October 17 posting at the bottom of the first image below is the last post by the Bluehost service in October. I created the November 12 post at the top of that image. The November 18 post on top of the second image below is the next post provided by the Bluehost service. The post shown at the top of the first image below and bottom of the second image below are the same November 12 posting which I posted. The November 18 Bluehost post was posted at 11/18/2021, 4:00 PM. This was after I informed Bluehost via Email that I was disputing charges to my credit card related to this issue.

A group of people that are talking to each other.

 

A flag flying in the sky on top of a pole.The Email text below was sent at 11/18/2021, 11:43 AM to my Social Media Management consultant:

Today I had to dispute charges to my credit card. You charged me for November and have failed to credit my card for the 11/3 charge that was made. I also disputed the October charge since the posts for at least half of October were not made and have not been done as you promised. In addition, I blocked further automatic charges to my card.

My card company told me that I should request a cancellation verification number regarding further charges to my card for your services which I cancelled on 11/4/2021.

This Email will become a permanent record If needed in this credit card charge dispute.

Unfortunately, this is a sad end to what I thought had been a good relationship regarding your services and my blog, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.

Mark

Her 11/19/2021, 5:28 AM Email response below showed me the reality of bully Bluehost tactics:

Hello Mark,

You reached out after the charges already went through for November and a refund was not requested. I let you know we would honor the amount that had been paid up to that point. I really wish you would have discussed this with me prior to disputing it with the bank because we could have worked it out.

I will close out your marketing account with us today. Please be advised when you dispute a charge with your bank, it will most likely lock your hosting account which will bring down your site so you will need to clear that up with the support team.

In spite of the fact that I informed the Bluehost Social Media account manager that I was terminating the service on 11/4/2021 by telephone, the above Email confirms that she did not close out [my] account until 11/19/2021, more Bluehost incompetence.

At 11/19/2021, 1:08 PM I responded:

I did not know that my account had already been charged on 11/3 when I talked to you on 11/4, or I would have requested a refund.  I did request a partial refund of October charges due to your team’s failure to meet obligations in October which you refused. Consequently, I terminated your services based on October performance which was the third or fourth failure to fulfill posting obligations. The last October post was 10/17. The 11/3 charge should have been reversed. In addition, you promised that the failure to produce 2 posts per week on Facebook that were missed would be made up in closing my account. One post was made 20 hours ago by Stephanie Hanson, I guess from your team, not three. It is interesting to me that no action came from your team to make up missed October posts until I disputed the charges. This does not include the Twitter posts that were not posted. Since you were not able to produce Twitter posts due to the failure of your system, your price should have been reduced because you agreed to two posts per week on Twitter as well.

I fail to see what this dispute has to do with my blog site since that is web hosting and your services were supposed to be about building my Facebook and Twitter following. I would appreciate your explanation for this linkage and contact information for the support team.

Mark

At 11/19/2021, 1:133 PM, Bluehost responded by Email as follows:

Mark,

I’m not disputing the lack of posts that were promised, I just wish you would have discussed the refund request with me directly before disputing with the bank. I would have informed you any chargeback, regardless of the service, will cause a lock of your hosting account until it is resolved.

The phone number for the Bluehost support team is.

Early Thanksgiving morning, 11/25/2021, 3:48 AM, Bluehost sent the Email below:

Mark R,

Your web hosting account for americascrossroad.com has been deactivated, as of 11/25/2021.

(reason: customer did chargeback).

Since the Email was sent at the beginning of a long holiday weekend, it was not opened until 11/29/2021. As soon as I read this communique, I contacted Bluehost support to determine how to challenge the deactivation of americascrossroad.com. As with most internet giant bullies, the bully Bluehost does not provide direct telephone access for customers to present their case in disputes. It took two days to learn where and how to present my case. Bluehost representative gave me a case number and informed me that all discussions regarding my situation would be done via Email, no telephone discussions were allowed by the bully Bluehost when money is involved.

The bully Bluehost Emails continued on 12/1/2021, 11:18 PM with the following:

Hello Mark,

thank you for contacting support. I’m looking into case number 36955709. I understand your concern regarding account activation, and I appreciate your patience while we are looking into this for you.

Here’s what’s happened: From the records, I see that there are chargebacks on the account for the auto renewal of SEO Link Building – 3 keyword (Standard) for two months.

A payment and a fee will help us clear the chargeback and activate the account. We have provided access to the account for the next 48 hours to update the credit card. You can access the following link to update a new credit card.

Once the credit card information has been updated, please fill in the following template and reply to this email to confirm you authorize us to charge the total amount as well as the fee on the new card. I ______ authorize Bluehost to charge $XXXX to the credit card ending in XXXX.

We look forward to receiving your information email and resolving this for you.

It would be great if you could take a quick survey by clicking on ‘Tell Me How I Did’ at the bottom of this email and rate my support (5 = Best). The head up, the survey link is active only for 48 hours.

Regards,

Escalated Support

The arrogance of the last paragraph above is palpable. Consequently, I did not complete the survey, but I should have. I doubt they are interested in a 1=Worst rating.

On 12/2/2021, 5:21 PM, I responded to the bully Bluehost with the following Email:

SEO Link Building – 3 Keyword (Standard) social media link building service to increase Facebook and Twitter ad campaigns described by Bluehost, Small Business Consultant, XXXXX, in a 10/6/2020 Email at 12:34 PM PT; and Bluehost webhosting are distinct functions with separate payment and contractual obligations which ethically should not be linked, in my opinion.

Consequently, your solution is inadequate. You have not investigated the Bluehost SEO Link Building – 3 Keyword (Standard) service failures regarding the reasons I disputed the charges involved in this matter. I do not want to continue use the SEO Link Building – 3 Keyword (Standard) service. I terminated the service on 11/4 for failure of the service to fulfill your obligations regarding Facebook and Twitter postings for 10/2021 and several previous months. This failure is the reason for the October chargeback. This failure was acknowledged by your SEO Link Building – 3 Keyword (Standard) representative by Email on 11/19/2021 at 1:33 PM PT. This service is advertised to produce two posting per week on each of my Facebook and Twitter pages. No posts were provided by the service between 10/17 and 11/18/2021. I terminated the service on 11/4 not knowing that my credit card account had been charged on 11/3. If Bluehost was an ethical organization, you would have credited my account for the 11/3 billing since no work was performed by the SEO Link Building – 3 Keyword (Standard) service between 11/4 and 11/18, actually 10/17 to 11/18, as documented on my Facebook page. This is the reason for the November chargeback. I have Emails and screen shots documenting your SEO Link Building – 3 Keyword (Standard) performance failures.

Hopefully, the information provided above will allow you to reactive americascrossroad.com or stimulate a personal discussion of the issues.

Please contact me personally if you need further clarification of my position on this matter.

Mark R. Champlin

Even after I provided the Bluehost correspondent’s name and Email dates and times, Bluehost did not think I have the documentation (shown previously) that they could access themselves. The bully Bluehost asked me to provide the documentation in their next Email to me.

At 12/2/2021, 6:01 PM, the bully Bluehost made the following Email request:

Hello Mark,

Thank you for your reply. I’m looking into case regarding account activation. I am really sorry for the inconvenience caused due to the unauthorized charges.

In order to assist you further in this matter, please provide us the screen shot of the emails which you have documented. It will definitely help to us investigate the issue.

We are an inbound call center and I am afraid we do not provide callback. If you wish to speak with our Phone support, then please feel free to call them at: U.S.(toll-free): (888) 401-4678. (Why? Phone support would know nothing about the issue under consideration!)

At the bottom of this email is a link to a brief survey that lets me and my manager know how I did. It would be very helpful if you could take it for me. (5 = Best)

A heads up, the survey link is active only for 48 hours.

Thank you for your time!”

Again, I did not complete the survey, but I should have. I doubt they are interested in a 1=Worst rating.

Although I have yet to respond to respond to the last information request, americascrssroad.com was reactivated on 12/3/2021. During this dispute with Bluehost, I contacted GoDaddy about the possibility of moving my website to their webhosting services. I was told that if the bully Bluehost continued to hold my website hostage by their deactivation, the best GoDaddy could do was accept my domain name with their service. In that case, I would have to totally rebuild my site and all its articles. Since I compose all my articles, including images and URLs in Microsoft Word, and save them, I could accomplish the task in about two weeks. Consequently, when I saw that my site was reactivated on 12/3/2021, I immediately contacted GoDaddy and started its migration process to their webhosting services. GoDaddy was able to quickly conduct the migration of the contents of the site and all that remained was transfer of my domain name to GoDaddy from the bully Bluehost to reactivate my website. Domain name transfer could take up to seven days. At 12/6/2021, 6:31 PM, I received another Email from the bully Bluehost notifying me that my website had been deactivated again.

On 12/10/2021, America’s Crossroad domain name transfer from the bully Bluehost to GoDaddy was completed and my website was once again active. At 12/13/2021, 4:23 PM, my first Blog Post with GoDaddy as my webhost was published. Consequently, I am done with the bully Bluehost.

My saga with the bully Bluehost is merely one story of how internet giants and Big Tech have all the power We the People are at their mercy. Cyber bullies like the bully Bluehost, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube will hold us hostage to extract money from us, suspend us, and exclude us from their platforms when our opinions do not conform to their woke, progressive, or Marxist norms. The United States congress must provide legislation that regulates all aspects of the internet and protects free speech and the rights of We the People.

If you have similar Big Tech cyber bully experiences, join the fray and comment on this article. All of the other America’s Crossroad Posts are listed by categories in the BLOG CONTENTS tab.  If you decide to read a few, please leave comments about your Patriot Visions, start or join the conversation, and share the Posts with friends and political frienimies.

MERRICK GARLAND IS A DISGRACE

A man in suit and tie standing at a podium.Merrick Garland is a disgrace to the proud traditions and heritage of the Office of the United States Attorney General (AG) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), in my opinion. As I listened to his speech to the DOJ staff on January 5, 2022, I was as viscerally angry. I was also thankful to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel for ensuring that Merrick Garland did not become an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States while he was the Senate Majority Leader. Merrick Garland’s speech demonstrated that he is a progressive partisan of epic proportions. With Garland as AG, Lady Liberty looks at justice with her left eye covered, blind folded to affronts perpetrated by those on the left, to quote me.

How did I come to such a drastic conclusion? The answer is simple. Merrick Garland has not pursued the 2020 Antifa and Black Lives Matter (BLM) rioters and murders as vigorously as he is pursuing January 6, 2021, Capital rioters. This fact contradicts statements Garland made during his speech when he said,

Our answer is, and will continue to be, the same answer we would give with respect to any ongoing investigation: as long as it takes and whatever it takes for justice to be done ” consistent with the facts and the law.

The department would do everything in our power to defend the American people and American democracy. We will defend our democratic institutions from attack. We will protect those who serve the public from violence and threats of violence.

The Department will follow the facts, and not an agenda or an assumption. The central norm is that, in our criminal investigations, there cannot be different rules depending on one’s political party or affiliation. There cannot be different rules for friends and foes. And there cannot be different rules for the powerful and the powerless.

Those involved must be held accountable, and there is no higher priority for us at the Department of Justice.

More than 700 defendants have been arrested in the probe and the FBI is still calling for the public’s help in identifying more than 350 other individuals it believes engaged in violent acts on the Capitol grounds that day. Dozens of the January 6 defendants have been charged with obstructing an official proceeding, though the department has not yet brought any sedition charges. Obviously, Merrick Garland is pursuing the January 6, 2021, Capital rioters with the right eye of Lady Liberty aggressively seeking out the guilty, to quote me again.

In contrast, under the Merrick Garland DOJ, the blind folded left eye of Lady Liberty is oblivious to the mayhem caused by Antifa and BLM during the 2020, George Floyd riots when the following details are considered. The Capitol architect told lawmakers the price tag for the January riots stood around $30 million. The George Floyd riots cost an estimated $2 billion. The vast majority of the $30 million cost of the Capitol riot was for additional costs like the unnecessary fencing, mental health care, other medical costs, and additional law enforcement and National Guard protection measures needed to protect the Capitol for months after the riot. The physical damage to the Capitol was estimated at $1.5 million, 1/20 of the touted $30 million cost of the Capitol riot. Using progressive Democrat Capitol math, the cost of the George Floyd riots was $40 billion. Did our cities, destroyed during the 2020 Antifa BLM riots that followed the death of George Floyd, get to add similar costs to the $2 Billion in costs they incurred? I don’t think so.

While they refrained from drawing any hard conclusions, RealClearInvestigations did an in-depth analysis of the data from not just the Capitol riots and last year’s, 2020, Antifa/BLM-led riots, but also the January 2017 riots that took place during then-President Trump’s inauguration.

Here were some of their findings:

The summer 2020 riots resulted in some 15 times more injured police officers, 30 times as many arrests, and estimated damages in dollar terms up to 1,300 times more costly than those of the Capitol riot. George Floyd rioters were found to have used more sophisticated and dangerous tactics than did the Capitol rioters, and in some cases weapons of greater lethality.

Authorities have pursued the largely Trump-supporting Capitol rioters with substantially more vigor than suspected wrongdoers in the earlier two cases. Many accused Capitol rioters, unlike accused participants in the other riots, have been held in pretrial detention for months “ with one defendant serving more time than the maximum sentence for the charge to which he pleaded guilty. Some allegedly endured solitary confinement and other mistreatment.

With authorities applying lenient prosecutorial standards in many major cities torn by the summer riots, the vast majority of charges last year were dismissed, as were charges in the Inauguration 2017 unrest. Charges have to date been dropped in only a single Capitol riot case.

Another key point to note about last summer’s riots, 2020, were the targets in some of the riots. It’s not uncommon to see liberals try to argue that the Capitol riots were symbolically worse because the Capitol building was targeted during what was supposed to be part of the peaceful transfer of power process.

What they conveniently forget, however, is that in some cities, left-wing rioters deliberately targeted government buildings including a federal courthouse, as Wilfred Reilly Tweeted reminding people as the left was busy minimizing the 2020 riots in the immediate aftermath of what took place at the Capitol building in January:

A screenshot of two tweets with the same tweet.

Sadly, the majority of these rioters have had all charges dropped, many with prejudice meaning they cannot be recharged; or their charges were reduced. Have there been any news stories about arrests or convictions in any of the murders committed during these peaceful 2020 Antifa BLM protests, riots? No, and to the best of my knowledge, not a single arrest has been made regarding the 34 murders.

Merrick Garland is, in my opinion, a disgrace to the United States Department of Justice and the Office of Attorney General. His actions do not hold up the high standards he set for himself. He said,

[The department would do everything] in our power to defend the American people and American democracy. We will defend our democratic institutions from attack. We will protect those who serve the public from violence and threats of violence, [and do] whatever it takes for justice to be done, [following] the facts, not an agenda or an assumption. There cannot be different rules depending on one’s political party or affiliation. There cannot be different rules for friends and foes. And there cannot be different rules for the powerful and the powerless. Those involved must be held accountable, and there is no higher priority for us at the Department of Justice.”

Merrick Garland is not vigorously pursuing Antifa and BLM rioters and their sources of funding. These rioters came equipped with weapons, protective gear and uniforms, incendiaries, lasers that could blind police officers, and trucks to haul their weapons and equipment. They are nationally organized communist or Marxist revolutionaries. With the blind folded left eye of the DOJ under Merrick Garland, Lady Liberty is in hot pursuit of everything conservative, Republican or Trump, but he/she is not interested in investigating anything that could lead to progressive financiers like George Soros. The damage caused by Antifa and BLM throughout the United States during simultaneous, coordinated Antifa BLM riots dwarfs the physical damage to the Capitol. Merrick Garland, progressives, and Democrats call the capitol rioters and parents protesting Marxist and progressive curricula in our schools, terrorists. In contrast, the term terrorist is not used when Antifa or BLM are the culprits. Additionally, as of June 9,2022, after the attempted assignation of Associate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Garland is not enforcing federal laws prohibiting demonstration at the residences of all federal judges intended to influence judicial decisions. As far as I am concerned, the contrast renders Merrick Garland a disgrace as AG of the United Starts.

Join the fray. All of the America’s Crossroad Posts are listed by categories in the BLOG CONTENTS tab.  If you decide to read a few, please leave comments about your Patriot Visions, start or join the conversation, and share the Posts with friends and political frienimies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANTIFA: COMMUNIST REVOLUTIONARIES

A fire that is burning in the middle of a street.Antifa, communist revolutionaries following Vladimir Lenin’s model for communist revolutions is an apt description of the reality of Antifa, in my opinion. Vladimir Lenin believed that evolutionary progress toward communism at the national and international levels was too slow. He devised revolutionary dictatorial plans to hasten the process culminating in communist parties and revolutions in Russia, China, and countless other nations around the world. In his book, THE ORIGIN OF RUSSIAN COMMUNISM, Nicolas Berdyaev’s discussion of Lenin’s personality and revolutionary concepts explains the success communist revolutions around the world. Lenin’s attitude toward the Czar’s Russia was tempered by the execution of his brother as a terrorist which also resulted in a cynically placid attitude regarding mankind. He was not an anarchist but required order and discipline among his followers. In his speeches and writings, he appealed, to labor, discipline, responsibility, knowledge and learning, and positive constructiveness, not simply destruction. Lenin checked the collapse of Russia by despotism and tyranny using cruel policies he considered unavoidable in a revolution. He was only interested in seizure of power. Lenin dedicated himself to developing the technique of revolutionary conflict. He held a totalitarian view of life necessary for the struggle focusing revolutionary energy. Lenin permitted any method in the fight to achieve revolution. To him ‘good’ was everything which served the revolution including fraud, deceit, violence, and cruelty;Revolutionarie’evil’ everything which hindered it. To Lenin, Marxism is above all the doctrine of the dictatorship of the proletariat. He was not a democrat; but he asserted the principle of a selected minority. His plan of revolution did not include development of consciousness among vast masses of workmen. Lenin’s purpose was formation of a strong party representing a well-organized and iron disciplined minority relying upon the strength of its integrated revolutionary dictatorship over life as a complete whole. The very organization of the party, which was centralized in the extreme, was a dictatorship over every member of the party. Lenin’s Bolshevik Party provided the pattern of the future organizational dictatorship of the communist party but also to the dictatorship of the communist dictator over the party membership. The plan for the Bolshevik Revolutionaries of Russia formulated by Lenin became the plan for Communist revolutions throughout the world.

A crowd of people in front of a building.To understand my characterization of Antifa as communist revolutionaries, it is necessary to understand the nature of the communist revolutions in Russia and China. Lenin envisioned Russia as the seat of world government based on the portion of Marxist philosophy suggesting the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin selected, trained, and developed a cadre of communist revolutionaries who would be responsible to indoctrinate and train party activists in the tactics of dictatorial revolution. Party leaders were told that authoritarian rule and government control of the entire economy would be needed to secure the benefits of communism, the dictatorship of the proletariat. Only then would the proletariat share equally in the benefits of production.

In 1895, Lenin helped organize Marxist groups in the capital into the &lig;Union for the Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class, which attempted to enlist workers to the Marxist cause. In 1902, he published a pamphlet titled What Is to Be Done? which argued that only a disciplined party of professional revolutionaries could bring socialism to Russia. Early on, Russian socialists were divided. Lenin’s Bolsheviks advocated militarism while the other group advocated a democratic movement toward socialism. Lenin made the split official at a 1912 conference of the Bolshevik Party. Lenin garnered popular support for his revolution with calls for &lig;peace, land, and bread. The 1905 Bloody Sunday massacre and subsequent Russian revolution were the first of a series of events that eventually led to the Soviet Union. On Bloody Sunday, hundreds of unarmed Russians protesting years of food shortages and costly wars were killed or wounded by the czar’s troops. Russia entered WW I in 1914 and suffered disastrous military losses, economic duress, and extensive food shortages. After WW I, the next Russian revolution stated in early 1917 and Czar Nicholas abdicated the throne. Later that year, Lenin led the Bolshevik revolution, a nearly bloodless coup d’état against a series of representative assemblies, or Dumas established by Czar Nicholas II. At the end of 1917, civil war started between the Red Army, the Bolsheviks, and the White Army, a coalition of monarchists, capitalists, and democratic socialists. In mid-1918, the Bolsheviks executed the Czar and his entire family. The civil war lasted until 1923 when Lenin’s communist revolutionaries defeated the White Army and established the Soviet Union.

After Germany and its allies were defeated in WWII, Joseph Stalin who succeeded Lenin in Russia, expanded communist rule to countries invaded by Germany in Eastern Europe. The result was establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR, and the beginning of the &lig;Cold War. During the Cold War, Russia also attempted to expand its influence into the Middle East, North Africa, Viet Nam, and Latin America through militant communist revolutions. On June 12, 1987, United States President Ronald Reagan said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” during a speech delivered in West Berlin. Of course, President Reagan was referring to the wall dividing Germany and Berlin into Eastern Communist and Western Free Democratic sides. The wall was built by the Communists to prevent those on the east from escaping to freedom in the west. On December 25, 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed because it was economically unable to sustain its Cold War military expenditures and support for communist revolutions around the world. From the time of the communist revolution in Russia to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the laboring proletariat of Russia and Eastern Europe never shared equally in the benefits of production or experienced promised freedom from exploitation. They just exchanged bourgeoisie capitalist for totalitarian communist overlords. Sadly, for the people of Russia, they have fallen under a new dictatorship led by a former communist, Vladimir Putin.

After a decade of agitation and riots culminating with a military revolt in 1911, the last Chinese dynasty, the Qing, ended with a revolution resulting in formation of the Republic of China on January 1, 1912. A republican government was established. In 1919 while involved in their civil war, Russian Communists sent a delegation to China to recruit leaders to communism. Chen Duxiu, a leading Chinese intellectual was recruited and became the founder of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), formally established in 1921. Chen was a Leninist supporting eventual world revolution. In their search for Far-East allies, Russian communists also determined that Sun Yat-sen, the first provisional President of the Republic of China, would accept communist support for his party, the Kuomintang or KMT, while it solidified its control of China. The KMT would later become the Chinese Nationalist Party. Chen and his Russian allies thought that their communists could control Sun and his nationalist. After Sun’s death in 1925, Chiang Kai-shek became the leader of the KMT and started a purge of the Communists. By 1927, the two-part Chinese civil war was raging.

The Nationalist expelled the Communists from the KMT; and in many cities communists were massacred. In this purge, the CCP lost approximately 15,000 of its 25.000 members. The remainder of the CCP fled into the countryside. To prepare for future battles, the CCP formed the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army of China, better known as the “Red Army.”  Mao Zedong, or Mao Tse-tung, was appointed provisional commander of the Red Army in August. Mao’s Red Army unsuccessfully attempted to defeat the nationalist in the cities of Hunan and Changsha. He retreated with his decimated forces into the nearby mountains. In the rural areas and mountains, Mao centralized power, trained a cadre of disciplined professional communist revolutionaries, organized the peasants, and built bases of operation and headquarters that he expanded during and after the Japanese invasion. By 1935 Mao had become the party’s Politburo Standing Committee leader and Red Army commander.

The war with Japan lasted from 1937 to 1945. The Communists and Nationalists paused their civil war and joined forces to fight the Japanese, but skirmishes between the two occurred throughout the war.  By 1940, cooperation had almost ceased, and the war was fought separately by Communists and Nationalists. The Chinese Nationalist Army took the brunt of the fighting with the Japanese and suffered greatly. The CCP used the end of the war to expand its territory. The Japanese invasion stirred a sense of nationalism among peasants which they previously lacked and set the stage for a communist revolution. The CCP had a doctrine, long-term objectives, a clear political strategy, disciplined leadership, and an army. After the defeat of Japan in WWII and Japan’s withdrawal from China in 1945, Mao became Chairman of the CCP. For about a year the Communists and Nationalists negotiated unsuccessfully for peace.

When the Chinese civil war resumed, the Nationalists had a 3-1 military advantage. The Nationalists prevailed militarily for the next two years of civil war conquering cities while failing to gain control rural territory, CCP strongholds. Nationalists also failed to gain popularity due to corruption. The CCP withdrew tactically from the cities while launching intellectual and student &lig;direct action protests against the Nationalists in the cities. The protests were met with heavy-handed suppression. Corruption and heavy-handedness caused division in Nationalist leadership resulting in desertion of nearly two-thirds of the Nationalist military by early 1948. In the fall of 1948, Chiang Kai-shek determined that he could regain the advantage with one significant battle in Manchuria. Although the Nationalist army was numerically superior, they were soundly defeated. Consequently, the remaining 600,000 Nationalist troops and about 2 million sympathizers retreated to the island of Taiwan. On October 1, 1949, Chairman Moa Zedong officially proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) at Tiananmen Square.

The foreign policy of the PRC was not as hostile to the non-Asian world as USSR foreign policy was to most of the world including China. The PRC pursued economic and technological development, global economic intervention, and international diplomacy rather than the global revolutionary intervention and weapons exports preferred by Russia. In 1972, Richard Nixon became the first President to visit the PRC. In December 1978, China announced the Open-Door Policy. For the first time since the CCP won their civil war, the PRC was opened to foreign investment. The normalization of ties culminated in 1979, when the U.S. established full diplomatic relations with the PRC. In 1983, the US State Department changed its classification of China to “a friendly, developing nation” thereby increasing the amount of technology and armaments that could be sold to China as a deterrent to potential USSR hostilities. In 1986, China gained observer status with The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, GATT,  an international treaty lasting from 1948 to 1994 to promote trade and economic development by reducing tariffs and other restrictions. GATT was superseded by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995.

In 1989, as many one million students began nearly two months of protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.  Protests spread to as many as 400 Chinese cities. Grievances included inflation, corruption, greater accountability, constitutional due process, democracy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech. In mid-June, CCP leaders ordered the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) to clear the square and end other demonstrations throughout the country. While the PLA was clearing the square, the famous &lig;Tank Man photo of one man standing in front of a line of tanks appeared worldwide. The photo came to represent the repressive nature of China under the CCP. The toll of the subsequent massacres was disputed and ranged from hundreds to thousands of protester deaths and injuries. Subsequently, the CCP made widespread arrests of protesters and supporters, expelled foreign journalists, strictly controlled coverage of the events in the domestic press, strengthened the police and internal security forces, and demoted or purged officials it deemed sympathetic to the protests. These restrictions have continued to this day. The west responded with temporary arms and trade embargos and strained diplomatic relationships. China became a pariah state for a relatively short period of time.

Since Tiananmen, China has worked domestically and internationally to reshape its image from a repressive regime to a benign global economic and military partner. In my opinion, the Chinese image and reality are not synonymous. CCP efforts to soften its world reputation and make significant internal economic changes were successful and culminated in admission of China to the World Trade Organization WTO in December of 2001. China has been able to maintain &lig;friendly developing nation&lig; status granted by the US in 1983 in the WTO. This status has given China enormous economic advantages while competing with &lig;developed nations like the United States.

While Russia and China pursued different strategies regarding the spread of communism internationally following their respective revolutions, their internal revolutionary plans were virtually identical. Both communist revolutions followed popular revolutions against monarchies and subsequent establishment of weak representative republican governments. These governments failed to resolve the economic problems caused by their respective monarchies which allowed communist revolutionaries to gain popularity with promises of &lig;peace, land, and bread. In both Russia and China, the people felt that they were being exploited by the wealthy and ruling classes. Both communist revolutions followed the model developed by Lenin. Lenin and Moa spent considerable time selecting and training a small cadre of disciplined professional communist revolutionaries completely dedicated to a totalitarian dictatorship of the proletariat.  This cadre of revolutionaries agreed with Lenin that ‘good’ was everything which served the revolution including fraud, deceit, violence, and cruelty; ‘evil’ everything which hindered it. Both revolutions sustained heavy initial losses which hardened the resolve of their leaders and members. These hardened survivors became even stronger leaders who were sent throughout their countries to establish revolutionary cells in both urban and rural parts of their countries as these movements grew. These communist revolutionaries were ready and willing to fight and die for the cause.

My characterization of Antifa as communist revolutionaries is, in my opinion, accurate. Antifa has at least 200 affiliated groups or cells in the United States. The Wikipedia Antifa article is a contradiction in terms. The first paragraph of the article states, &lig;It is highly decentralized and comprises an array of autonomous groups that aim to achieve their objectives through ¦both nonviolent and violent direct action rather than through policy reform. This description parrots the mainstream news, media, academic, progressive, and Democrat view of Antifa. My question is which came first, &lig;the chicken or the egg? Did these groups write the article, or do they parrot what the article says as the reality of Antifa for public consumption, mere propaganda? Antifa agrees with Lenin and Mao when they claim that &lig;policy reform is too slow and change must be forced through &lig;non-violent and violent direct action. Although the article claims that Antifa is composed of &lig;highly decentralized¦ autonomous groups, these &lig;groups are organized to achieve &lig;their objectives which implies common objectives; and &lig;their direct actions are conducted to achieve &lig;their objectives. When Antifa cells, or &lig;groups, arrive in cities throughout the United States, sometimes internationally, unload rental trucks full of riot gear, march under the same flag with trained precision to &lig;direct action events, &lig;protests, and conduct disciplined &lig;violent direct action that includes political violence, assault, arson, and property destruction, We the People are told that Antifa is an ideology not an organization.

In the section of the Antifa article titled &lig;Public reactions, &lig;Academics and scholars appear to justify a vigilante view of Antifa’s &lig;violent direct action as follows:

&lig;Historian Mark stated that ‘[Given] the historical and current threat that white supremacist and fascist groups pose, it’s clear to me that organized, collective self-defense is not only a legitimate response, but lamentably an all-too-necessary response to this threat on too many occasions.’

Alexander Reid Ross has argued that Antifa groups represented ‘one of the best models for channeling the popular reflexes and spontaneous movements towards confronting fascism in organized and focused ways.'”

Historian and Dissent magazine editor Michael Kazin wrote that ‘non-leftists often see the left as a disruptive, lawless force. Violence tends to confirm that view.’ Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat was ‘worried that antifa’s methods could feed into what she said were false equivalencies that seek to lump violence on the left with attacks by the right.'”

Excuse me, but violence is violence. Supporters of law and order understand this simple concept about right and wrong. Violence is violence! Violence by those on the left is equivalent to violence by those on the right. Clear thinking adults understand that these are not &lig;false equivalencies. Furthermore, the statement by Ruth Ben-Ghiat supports my contention that academics and scholars and most of the news media on the left support and encourage &lig;violent direct action, riotous actions perpetrated by Antifa. My contention that Antifa are communist revolutionaries acting as vigilantes is further supported by the following statement by Peter Beinart:

“Antifa believes [that]¦ in the name of protecting the vulnerable, antifascists have granted themselves the authority to decide which Americans may publicly assemble and which may not.

Antifa is organized as a vigilante group of communist revolutionaries.

At this point in this discussion, I must state unequivocally that I abhor all forms of white supremacy and racism. The first section of the article, what most people read, also states, &lig;Some scholars argue that Antifa is a legitimate response to the rise of the far right and that Antifa’s violence such as milkshaking is not equivalent to right-wing violence. Scholars tend to reject the equivalence between Antifa and white supremacism. Antifa &lig;direct action is described as milkshaking not the reality of Antifa members beating men and women to a pulp, setting fires, destroying businesses, attacking law enforcement officers, headquarters and other government buildings including courthouses. Leftist &lig;expects and news media expect us to believe what they tell us about Antifa not what we see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears. Again, these are the tactics of communist revolutionaries. One last question, &lig;In the last fifty years, what &lig;white supremacist group or groups have caused one billion dollars in damages throughout the United States over a single summer?

According to the article, individuals involved in Antifa hold left-wing anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, and anti-state views. Most Antifa members are anarchists, communists, and other socialists who describe themselves as revolutionaries, communist revolutionaries in my opinion. The idea of direct action is central to the Antifa movement. The term &lig;direct action is used by political activists to describe economic and political acts requiring physical power to achieve their goals which are opposed by authorities. Antifa often engages in &lig;violent direct action, political violence, assault, arson, and property destruction, riots to the &lig;politically incorrect. Scott Crow says that Antifa adherents believe that property destruction ds not “equate to violence.” According to Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at the California State University, San Bernardino, Antifa activists feel the need to participate in violent direct actions because “they believe that elites are controlling the government and the media. So, they need to make a statement head-on against the people who they regard as racist. Therefore, according to Antifa, our government and the media are racist and must be confronted by &lig;violent direct actions. The idea that our government and media are racist is consistent with the ideas of Marxist Critical Race Theorists and Black Lives Matter activists. Violent direct action also describes the tactics of the communist revolutionaries during the Russian and Chinese communist revolutions.

The article also describes the organizational structure and membership of Antifa as loosely affiliated with no national chain of command. Antifa groups share “resources and information¦ across regional and national borders through loosely knit networks and relationships of trust and solidarity.” According to Mark Bray, members have &lig;high expectations of commitment to Antifa and each other. Activists typically organize protests via social media, websites, peer-to-peer networks, or encrypted-texting services. Antifa activists dress in black and cover their faces to thwart surveillance and create a sense of equality and solidarity among participants. The progressive news media and the left would have We the People believe that Antifa is just an ideology because its 200 plus cells do not have a Lenin, Moa, or Duke to lead a united front in their &lig;direct action campaigns. However, their cell leaders share resources and information, organize by social media, websites, peer-to-peer networks, or encrypted-texting services; and they are joined by high expectations of commitment and solidarity to Antifa and each other. As Lenin required, Antifa cell leaders and members are a &lig;disciplined cadre of professional revolutionaries. Antifa is operated by a committee or council of cell leaders, a board of directors, not a commander, CEO, or chairman. Consequently, Antifa is an international anarchist, communist, organization with a significant operation in the United States. Antifa employs the tactics of the early phases of the communist revolutions in Russia and China. Antifa are vigilante communist revolutionaries.

Join the fray. All of the America’s Crossroad Posts are listed by categories in the  BLOG CONTENTS tab.  If you decide to read a few, please leave comments about your &lig;Patriot Visions, start or join the conversation, and share the Posts with friends and political frienimies.

 

 

 

 

GOD’S FAVORED COLOR: WHITE, BROWN, BLACK, OR RED?

 

A large group of people standing together in a room.

God’s favored color is the color life, red. God’s favored color has nothing to do with race, ethnicity, politics, ideology, or socio-economic philosophy. If God does not look at skin color, what should Biblical Christians do about racism?

Why do I believe that God’s favored color is red? In Genesis 4:10-12, God said to Cain,

What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth. [Scriptural quotations are from the New International Version,]

Genesis 9:6 says, Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God has God made man. In Exodus 12, the Passover lamb and its blood is central to the Passover. In verse 5 scripture says, The animals you choose must be year- old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. Verses 7-11 tells us that the people were to

¦Take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water, but roasted over the fire ˆ’ head, legs, and inner parts. Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. This is how you are to eat it: with your coat tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste, it is the Lord’s Passover.

Let’s consider some key Passover symbols. The entire Passover paints a picture of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection which gives believers in Him the promise of eternal life. Of course, the Lamb, without defect, symbolized Christ. The Lambs blood symbolized Christ’s blood. A bunch of hyssop was used to place a lot of blood on the door frame. The blood on top of the frame dripped to the threshold at the bottom. Blood was also placed on the posts on each side of the doors. Connect the dots of blood and you get the cross of Christ’s crucifixion. Think of it. When God passed through Egypt, He would not let the destroyer enter the houses protected by the Lambs blood, the cross of Christ’s crucifixion. The blood of the Lamb and the cross of Christ provided salvation, life, for all in the house. Sacrificial blood is part of atonement and forgiveness. Leviticus 17:11 says, For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. Similarly, Hebrews 9:22 says, In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. God’s favored color is red, the color of the Blood of Christ, the Lamb of God.

Let’s look at the Lamb’s part in the Passover meal. That which was eatable by God’s instructions about what to eat was totally consumed. It was incorporated into the body of each participant. This is a symbol of Salvation. Each person must accept Christ into their life as Lord and Savior. Christ, through the Holy Spirit empowers each Christian as in Acts 2:4, All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the spirit enabled them. In contrast, those parts of the Lamb that were not to be consumed according to God’s instructions, Exodus 29, unholy parts, were totally consumed in fire. Symbolically, that, or those, outside God’s redemptive plan through the blood of Christ face another fire, Revelations 20:14-15,

Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Since blood is red and blood is life, God’s favored color is red. Does God give a whit about the skin color of the people He created? Genesis 9:6 says, Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God has God made man. With this in mind, does skin color represent the image of God or is it the blood that represents the image of God? God only sees one color when he looks at his human creation. The color of the blood of Jesus Christ. This is also the only color we should see,

What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus; What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh! precious is the flow that makes me white as snow; no other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

The phrase white as snow comes from Isaiah 1: 18, ‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet [red], they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.’ Let us be crystal clear, when God speaks through Scripture, white never refers to skin color. White is never a racial term. When I look at humanity, I want to see only one color, the red color of the blood of Jesus that washed away our sin, the sin of each individual in the United States and the world.

Scripturally, white also represents the Light and Life of Christ. In Mathew 17:2 we read, There He was transfigured before them. His face shone as the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light [from His face]. In John 8:12, Jesus said, I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life. John 1:4 states, In Him [Christ] was Life, and that Life was the Light of men. In John 14;6-7 Christ said,

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you really know Me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him.

Our red blood makes up about 8% of our body weight. Our blood is our life both spiritually in God’s sight and physically. Physically, our blood is where our cells exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide carried to and from our lungs to our entire body. Our blood carries nutrients from our digestive system to our entire body, and metabolic waste from our entire body to our organs of waste elimination. Our blood carries hormones throughout our bodies. Our blood transports the essence of our physical life. This is the reason that blood is life in the sight of God; and the red of blood is God’s favored color.

Since our skin makes up only about 7% of our total body weight, I personally fail to understand why people think that skin color has any relevance when evaluating the worth or character of any human being. Sadly, when I look at the black community outside the walls of Biblical Christian black churches, I unfortunately, see skin color because that black community sees me as a racist old white man steeped in white privilege. The vision of the greater black community, outside of the Blood of Jesus, is the vision that is MAKING A RACIST OLD WHITE MAN of me. Unfortunately, I also see a community ravaged by BLACK SELF-GENOCIDE, at the hands of black criminals who kill their fellow blacks including black children. It also breaks my heart to know that black babies in the wombs of black mothers are killed by abortionists, more black self-genocide.

As we consider the implications of God’s favored color, there is one critical question for Biblical Christians of every race, ethnicity, and class. How can we work together to unite our nation for the cause of Christ when leftist elitists of our most influential institutions and culture seek to divide us by race, ethnicity, and economic class? These groups also denigrate and undermine Biblical Christian morality and ethics as well as our two Holy and ordained institutions, the church and family consisting of a father, mother, and their children. These elitists also deny, denigrate, and undermine the importance and reality of our Judeo-Christian heritage in relation to our Constitution, national success, prosperity, and freedom to elect a black President, Barack Obama.

The first step in answering the question, How, is to become informed about the issues. Hopefully, the seventy plus articles at America’s Crossroad will provide sufficient information about the critical issues affecting our nation and Biblical Christians. The AMERICA’S CROSSROAD and PATRIOT VISIONS tabs at the top of the website will provide insights into my biases and perspectives on the issues. The PATRIOT VISIONS tab discusses my positioning of the various philosophical, ideological, and political groups on the left-right political continuum. The BLOG CONTENTS tab lists articles by general subject matter categories and provides a link to each article on the site. The CHRISTIANITY, CULTURE, EDUCATION, and MARXISM categories will probably provide the most relevant information for Biblical Christians.

The second step in answering the question, How, is to ask yourself if your votes and activism actually represent your Biblical Christian values. If the policies, initiatives, and laws supported the politicians you vote for do not reflect your Biblical Christian values, stop voting for them. If a school board candidate supports teaching curricula that does not reflect your Biblical Christian values, do not support or vote or them. If no candidate supports your Biblical Christian values, become active in finding a candidate or candidates who do; or run for the office yourself. Ordinary people like you are running for office all over our nation, especially in school board elections. To use an old cliche, actions speak louder than words.

The third step in answering the question, How, is to increase voter registration and voting among Biblical Christians. Sadely, voter registration and voting among Biblical Christians is about the same as in the secular population, about 50%. If there are 50 to 80 million Biblical Christians in the United States, a significant number of voters with Biblical Christian values are not voting. Consider the fact that the Southern Baptist Convention has 14.5 million members with at least 4 million attenders who are not members. Additionally, there are at least 10 other Biblical Christian denominations and countless independent congregations in our nation. If half of these unregistered Biblical Christians were registered and voted their values, 12.5 to 20 million Biblical Christian value voters would cast ballots in our national elections for President and the US congress. The same results would occur at the local and state levels. The result would transform our nation. One could call it the start of a revival of traditional Judeo-Christian values.

God does not see skin color, race, or ethnicity. He only sees God’s favored color, red, the color of the Blood of Jesus shed for redemption of our sin.

The final question for readers is simple, What will you do?

Join the fray. All of the America s Crossroad Posts are listed by categories in the  BLOG CONTENTS tab. If you decide to read a few, please leave comments about your Patriot Visions, start or join the conversation, and share the Posts with friends and political frienimies.

CIVILIZATION JIHAD AND THE SQUAD

 

A collage of pictures with the president and his military service.

Civilization Jihad is a Muslim Brotherhood plan to peacefully conquer the west, including the United States, from within using our Constitution and laws as the primary weapons. The Squad, congresswomen Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts are critical to the Civilization Jihad strategy to defeat us, create an Islamic state, and impose un-Constitutional Sharia law on our society. Rashida Tlaib and AOC are the first female members of the Democratic Socialists of America. Of the four Squad members only AOC is not Muslim. It is important to note that Islam and socialism are statist ideologies making AOC an effective Civilization Jihadist.

Several years ago, the radical right wing website Godfather Politics Published a now deleted article titled, Muslim Brotherhood’s Five-Step Plan of Domination, Key elements are cited below:

The Muslim Brotherhood, the originator of modern-day terrorism, has a five-step or phase plan, which could take 100 years or more to fully implement and gain dominance over western civilizations like the United States. They call it civilization Jihad. Many religions have step programs. There are the nine steps to convert to Judaism and 13 steps to convert to Catholicism. Eventually, the plan would require all to submit to Sharia law. The plan was crafted by Mohammed Akram, a senior Hamas leader in the United States and board member of the Muslim Brotherhood of North America and approved by its Shura Council in 1987. Their mission statement is as follows:

The process of settlement is a Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim brethren united by common ties] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers [especially Christians and Jews] so that it is eliminated and God’s religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions.’

This mission statement for civilization Jihad is remarkably similar to the plan of another Statist. Joseph Stalin purportedly said, America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within. Details of the Muslim Brotherhood civilization Jihad plan follow:

Phase One calls for discretion as members and operatives keep a low profile and go about their business as shop owners, students and professionals. They are to be model citizens, gaining respect within their vocations and communities. Years or even decades may pass between stages.

Phase Two requires sufficient population of Muslims who begin to come out of the shadows. They begin gently pushing for recognition of Sharia law within their own communities and sphere of influence while publicly siding with the West against radical Islam. They insist that Islam is a religion of peace while co-opting progressive western leaders. They assure these leaders that Sharia will never be applied outside their own communities.

Phase Three is the penetration and escalation phase. When there are enough Muslims in a city, political and economic influence is expanded beyond the Muslim communities as in Dearborn and Minneapolis. [Muslim influence has now expanded to the US House of Representatives where five Muslims now serve.] Extensive mosque construction, funded by foreign entities, exceeding requirements based on Muslim populations is part of this phase of civilization Jihad. [Today, there are nearly 2800 mosques in the United States. There are also nearly 30 front groups and organizations that make it a appear that Muslims have more influence than they actually do.]

[The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is one of the most influential Islamic front groups. CAIR has a paid staff of about 70, around 300 volunteers, an annual budget of $3 million, affiliates in 20 states, and 33 chapters in the US. Lorenzo G. Vidino, observed that while CAIR is not a “Muslim Brotherhood organization,” CAIR has significant ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Front groups like CAIR pressure politicians and academia for Islamic studies and prayer areas, claiming victimization and demanding accommodations. They file lawsuits and cry Islamophobia at every turn, thus wearing down their Western hosts.]

Phase Four is where Muslims, now a rather significant minority population in the host country, become more belligerent and insistent that Sharia law be woven into the host’s legal, political, economic and systems. Violence from supposedly independent and disparate radical groups may also be part of Phase Four. [These Islamic revolutionaries often employ communist revolutionary tactics like those used in the Russian and Chinese communist revolutions and Iranian revolution.]

Phase Five is the final step. Muslims become the majority, or at least the ruling minority. Without pretense, the ruling Muslims terminate all non-Islamic influence. Sharia law is imposed nationwide.

In the Hudson Institute article, The Muslim Brotherhood’s U.S. Network by Zeyno Baran, the six decade history of the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States is detailed including the civilization Jihad mission statement cited above. This article provides stark details concerning the tactics employed by Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists in the United States including the five phases of civilization Jihad. Key elements of Baran’s article are as follows:

In Akram’s 18-page Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America, he states that the general strategic goal of the Group [the Muslim Brotherhood] in America consists of six stages:

Establishing an effective and stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood,

Adopting Muslims’ causes domestically and globally,

Expanding the observant Muslim base,

Unifying and directing Muslims’ efforts,

Presenting Islam as a civilizational [sic] alternative,

Supporting the establishment of the global Islamic state wherever it is.

Akram then notes that the priority for this strategy is Settlement.’ This entails becoming rooted in the spirits and minds of [the] people and establishing organizations on which the Islamic structure is built.’ Akram states that Muslims should look upon this mission as a Civilization Jihadist responsibility,’ one that lies on the shoulders of Muslims [but especially on those of] the Muslim Brotherhood in this country.’ 

In setting up their various institutions over the past four decades Brotherhood members have remained secretive, working through the organizations mentioned above to exert their influence. When questioned, most of these organizations at first deny any links to the Brotherhood. One undated MAS memo explicitly instructs group leaders to respond negatively if asked whether they are part of the Brotherhood. When this deception failed and connections to the Brotherhood were disclosed, MAS members have downplayed these links as merely an association of the past. At the same time, they adopt the role of the victim, accusing their accusers of McCarthyism’ and Islamophobia.’ This intimidation, up to and including antidefamation lawsuits, has silenced many journalists, researchers, and other Muslims¦.

What do I mean by Islamist?’ The term was coined by the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, in an effort to politicize Islam. Broadly, the label Islamist applies to individuals or groups who believe that Islam should be a comprehensive guide to life. Islamists do not accept that the interpretation of Islam could evolve over the centuries along with human beings’ understanding, or that the religion could be influenced or modified by the cultures and traditions of various regions. Nor do they recognize that Islam can be limited to the religious realm, or to simply providing its followers with a code of moral and ethical principles¦.

Islamists are strenuously opposed to secular governance. Instead, they believe that Islamic rules and laws based upon the Quran and the sharia code must shape all aspects of human society, from politics and education to history, science, the arts, and more. Islamic jurisprudence developed and codified over the course of the 8th and 9th centuries and has not changed since then. In wholly sharia-based countries such as Iran, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia, there is little distinction between religion and state, leaving no room for liberal democracy. The institution of elections might be maintained, but this will inevitably be an illiberal system without dissent, individuation, or critical thinking¦.

Non-Islamist Muslims understand the inherent incompatibility between Islamism’s desired imposition of sharia law upon society at large and Western society’s pluralism and equality. To the Brotherhood and groups like it”whether in the Middle East or the United States”the Quran and Islam are not merely one possible source of law; they are the only source of law. As the Muslim Brotherhood declares in its motto, Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Quran is our law, jihad is our way, dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.

The Muslim Brotherhood in America, Is a ten-part, Center for Security Policy, YouTube expose that also discusses the agenda and tactics of the Brotherhood in the United States including civilization Jihad. These videos range in length from fifteen minutes to two hours. Videos cover Brotherhood tactics and influence operations used against conservatives and Republicans and the organizations Islamists use to promote civilization Jihad and counter opposition primarily from the political right.

Islamists are patient people who appear to be succeeding beyond their wildest dreams in their plan for civilization Jihad in the United States. Muslims control large communities in major cities where they have succeeded in imposing Sharia law with the consent of these city, county, and state governments. In these communities, Muslims have been elected and appointed to city, country, state, and national leadership positions as well as election to the US House of Representatives in the Congress of the United States. Muslims are also becoming more belligerent and insistent that Sharia law be woven into legal, political, economic and systems in the United States. These activities are consistent with Phases Three and Four of civilization Jihad; and members of the Squad integral to the plan.

Islamists, Squad members, and other elected and appointed Muslim government officials use their positions, the Constitution, and our laws to advance the objectives of civilization jihad.  Amendment I, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or the press¦; and Amendment XIV, No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, ¦ nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the free protection of the laws are used quite effectively for their purposes. Islamists claim that Sharia law is an integral part of their religion and must be permitted under the free exercise clause of Amendment I. When Muslims violate our family practice or other laws, they often claim their actions are allowed under Sharia law and demand the protection of the equal protection clause of Amendment XIV.

On the other hand, Islamists reject those parts of our Constitution and laws which preclude imposition of Sharia law in any US jurisdiction. While Islamists invoke the free exercise phrase of the religion clause of Amendment I to the Constitution when demanding establishment Sharia law, they neglect the first phrase of the religion clause which states Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Since Sharia law is an integral part of the Islamist Muslim religion, laws enabling establishment of Sharia law are an un-Constitutional establishment of Religion. Additionally, Article VI, Paragraph 2 states,

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States ¦, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws, of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

Article VI, Paragraph 3 provides further proof of the un-Constitutional nature of Sheria law when it states,

[All elected and appointed government officials and judges] shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Sharia law, a Constitutional Thing, does not recognize the Constitution and Laws of United States as the supreme Law of the land, since Islamists believe that the the Quran and Islam are not merely one possible source of law; they are the only source of law violating the supremacy paragraph of our Constitution. A judge or other adjudicator of Sheria law must be a Muslim or at least agree that the Quran, Islam, and Sharia law supersede the Constitution and laws of the United States. Consequently, a religious Test is required as a Qualification to administer or adjudicate Sharia law. Therefore, Sharia law is un-Constitutional according to Article VI, Paragraphs 2 and 3, of our Constitution.

Squad members Omar, Tlaib, Pressley, and AOC embrace their civilization Jihad role as part of the

Ikhwan [Muslim brethren united by common ties] [who] understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their [own] hands¦.

They support incorporation of un-Constitutional Sharia law into our local, state, and national legal codes. Their rhetoric is anti-Semitic and supports Islamic terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al-Qaeda which seek to eliminate the nation of Israel. They refused to support funding for the Iron Dome missile defense system which defends Israel from Hamas and Hezbollah rocket attacks. The Squad along with Islamist activists like Linda Sarsour and Abbas Hamideh also supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) movement which views Israel as occupiers of Palestine and seeks to punish Israel for defending itself against Palestinian, Hamas, and Hezbollah terror and rocket attacks. Squad members also embrace language accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians without evidence.

The Squad supports most ideologies, movements, and rhetoric that pits groups of Americans against each other. They support claims by Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theorists that the United States was founded as a racist nation because of slavery. The fact that slavery was a worldwide institution not an institution unique to the Thirteen Colonies and the United States prior to the Civil War is irrelevant to those seeking to sow division in the United States. They also neglect the fact that African slaves were sold to slavers by other Africans victorious in tribal warfare. They claim that we are a systemically racist nation where all white people benefit from white privilege and the country is plagued by white Supremacists who are a greater danger to our democracy the Islamic terrorists. Whenever the policies or initiatives supported by the Squad, Democrat Socialists, progressives, and Democrats fail or are opposed by Republicans and conservatives, the left shouts that their opponents are racists or white supremacists. When racist does not fit, the left shouts misogynist, and xenophobic in an effort to divide and silence opposition.   

It seems worthwhile to reiterate the marching orders of the Squad and the Marxists of the left. The purpose of civilization Jihad in America for the Ikhwan Squad members, Omar, Tlaib, Pressley, and AOC is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands. Similarly, the Marxist objective for America states that, America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within. The civilization Jihadists and the Marxists seek to destroy the United States from within using a divide and conquer strategy.

The questions for We the People is simple. Will We the People allow these enemies within our nation to divide us and defeat us. Will We the People unite against these internal enemies seeking to destroy our culture and our nation?

SILENCE IS NOT GOLDEN!

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THE OBAMA BIDEN FAILURES: AFGHANISTAN AND 9/11

 

A group of men in white and black outfits.
A large fire and smoke cloud is coming from the top of the twin towers.

The Obama Biden failures in Afghanistan will gut punch the world, especially We the People of the United States of America on 9/11/2021. This will be the twentieth anniversary of the Islamic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, on the United States. On September 11, 2021, the terrorist Taliban will inaugurate their Afghan government while we commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Islamic terrorist attacks on our nation planned by Al Qaida from Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban. The sickening juxtaposition of these two events infuriates me.

A collage of pictures with the president and his military service.

Obama traded Sargent Bowe Bergdahl for five high ranking Taliban members who were being held at Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba. Bergdahl, a treasonous traitor, pled guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. He was demoted to a private, fined, and Dishonorably Discharged; but not imprisoned. Obama and his Administration naively assured We the People of the United States that none of the five would return to Afghanistan and the Taliban. The entire Obama administration was wrong, including Biden and his current Secretary of State, Blinken who was a key player in the misguided negotiations for the Taliban Five trade. Four of the five Taliban terrorists released in the trade for the traitor Bergdahl are again high-ranking leaders in the new Taliban government of Afghanistan, the first of the Obama Biden failures.

The second of the Obama Biden failures was the disastrous withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. The withdrawal of troops to the Kabul airport occurred before US citizens and legal residents, Afghanis with Special Immigrant Visas who assisted allied forces in the war on terror in Afghanistan, and other vulnerable Afghanis were evacuated stranding hundreds to thousands of these people behind enemy Taliban terrorist lines. Estimates for stranded Americans range from 100 to 550 people. The result is that we must negotiate with Taliban terrorists to free these Americans and the others. Contrary to longstanding American military tradition, Biden left Americans and the others behind enemy lines stranding them creating a high potential for a hostage crisis.

A collage of pictures with the president and his military service.

The Obama Biden failures also include the fact that they did not complete the trial of 9/11 master mind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In March 2007 testimony, he said, “I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z. In a pre-trial hearing prior to the Obama inauguration in 2009, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants indicated the that they would plead guilty to all 9/11 charges knowing that they faced the death penalty. Mohammed noted that he had been looking to “be a martyr for long time.” The trial was never held because Obama had campaigned on closing Guantanamo Bay. The trial was delayed because of a long-failed attempt to close Guantanamo, subsequent Supreme Court rulings, and legal maneuvers by court appointed defense attorneys. These delays prevented the trial and execution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators, another of the Obama Biden failures. Consequently, two decades after the 9/11 attacks, the master mind of the attacks has not faced justice. He will be happy that his friends the Taliban will hold the inauguration of their new Afghan Taliban government on the twentieth anniversary of his greatest success, the 9/11 attacks on the United States of America.

Given these three colossal Obama Biden failures, it will be difficult for me to listen to the song, I’m proud to be an American, on 9/11, 2021. This year it’s tuff to be proud of the Biden America.

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AFGHANISTAN FAILURE: A 20-YEAR PROCESS

 

A group of people in military uniforms holding guns.

The Afghanistan failure has been a 20-year process. The Afghanistan failure was a failure to understand history and Islamic culture, train Afghan forces to fight independently, understand the evolution of the US and Afghan political environment, and poor intelligence or the failure to understand or properly use the intelligence provided. Since no empire or nation has exerted long term control over Afghanistan from Genghis Khan to the Soviet Union, Afghanistan is known as the graveyard of empires. Afghanistan was and is a nation ruled by tribal war lords, who are the village and regional leaders of most of Afghanistan, with many ethnic groups and tribes that have been fighting to control the nation for decades if not centuries. These groups only unite effectively to fend off external enemies. In our arrogance, US politicians and military leaders convinced themselves and our nation that our military prowess would prove the exception to centuries of failure to conquer the Afghan people.

Afghan Islamic culture is a male dominated patriarchal culture controlled by Sharia Law and tribal warfare. War lords control rural Afghan villages and regions as well as the lives of tribal Afghan fighters. Under Sharia law, women are totally subservient, westerners would say enslaved, to men. Consequently, the Afghan security forces fighters were taught from their youth to be totally subservient to war lords and village elders many of whom are Taliban. It is not difficult to imagine that this allegiance might be hard to overcome with training conducted by foreign military trainers with good pay as the primary motivation. Although these forces had good fighting capabilities and have suffered around 70,000 dead while fighting the Taliban in previous years when they could usually depend on US air support on the battlefield. With their tribal allegiances and the corruption of Afghan political and military leaders, the dedication of the Afghan security forces to their national leaders and chain of command may have been deteriorating. Retired Lt. Col. Daniel Davis described the response from Afghan soldiers on the ground as apathetic: I’m not going to die for a government that doesn’t even take care of me, that doesn’t pay me very well, and that doesn’t even give me food, bullets, resupply things, doesn’t give us backup when we need help.

Unfortunately, the United States military trained the Afghan security forces in tactics that ultimately caused our Afghanistan failure. First, for almost two decades the United States military failed to train the Afghan security forces to fight as a totally independent force without US air and intelligence support. Although Afghan forces had US air support for nearly two decades, the US failed to prepare these forces for complete withdrawal of US support. Once support for the Afghan war lost popular support in the US, at least six years ago, the US military training of Afghan security forces should have transitioned to totally independent fighting. Virtually every military commentator, including retired general Jack Keane on Fox News, stated that these forces were trained to fight with US air support. When Bagram Airbase was abandoned to the Taliban and US air support was withdrawn, the Afghan security forces lost the equalizing battlefield force that they had been trained to depend on for victory. Consequently, The Afghan security forces did not know how to fight the Taliban independently and lost the confidence, morale, and esprit de corps needed to win on the battlefield. As a result of this Afghanistan failure, the Afghan security forces simply refused to fight the Taliban and allowed the Taliban to take control of most of the county in a mere eleven days.

The second Afghanistan failure was a combined US political and military failure. US politicians, four different Commanders-in-Chief, two from each political party, failed to establish a consistent mission and exit strategy for the Afghan war. The first mission was to defeat the Taliban, which had provided Al-Quada a base of operation and training sites used to launch the 9/11 attack on the United States, defeat Al-Quada, capture or kill Osama Bin-Laden, and prevent future Al-Quada attacks on US soil. The US has not suffered another significant attack since 9/11. The Taliban and Al-Quada were not able to mount meaningful military operations in Afghanistan after 2002; and Al-Quada was no longer a threat by 2005. Osama Bin Laden, hiding in Pakistan, was not killed until May 2011. This mission was accomplished sometime between 2004 and 2011 when the United States should have conducted an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, no exist strategy was delineated for the Afghan war; and a new mission was established for our military forces in Afghanistan.

The second mission, for each successive Commander-in-Chief, became nation building. The US military and Afghan security forces fought annual military campaigns against the Taliban to provide an environment to maintain a western style political and economic system for Afghanistan. This mission included establishing sufficient stability to conduct free democratic elections open to both men and women and allow women to hold elected office. The first national Afghan election was held in October 2004. This mission also included establishing a public education system open to both sexes, allow women to work in all segments of the economy and travel freely in public, and construct electric, water, sewer, transportation, and other infrastructure systems to support internal and external commerce, and improve the standard of living for Afghanis. Unfortunately, both the Afghan political and military systems and leaders have been plagued by corruption. This fact may have played a role in the ultimate Taliban victory if the Afghan leadership lost the support of the security forces due to their corruption. The Afghanistan failure was also a colossal failure of intelligence; or President Biden refused to believe intelligence indicating an imminent and sudden Taliban victory that occurred during the US withdrawal was a possibility.

Two men sitting at a table with microphones.

On Wednesday August 18, 2021, Secretary of Defense, retired General Lloyd J. Austin III and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley held a joint news conference to update the nation on the fall of Afghanistan and the status of the evacuation mission. General Milley indicated that our intelligence had no indication that the entire Afghan military and government could fall in eleven days. The worst estimate was several weeks while other estimates up to two years were noted. No other meaningful details about our Afghanistan failure were discussed. Apparently, the intelligence failed to determine that Taliban fighters were dispersed throughout Afghanistan ready to move rapidly against the 34 provincial capitals and other major cities and towns as the US military forces withdrew leaving the Afghan security forces to fend for themselves.

From the little that I have read, perhaps the greatest Afghanistan failure occurred at the Department of Defense and Department of State. Simply Googling Afghan security forces reveals numerous open source articles questioning the readiness of these forces including the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). SIGAR reports are provided to both the Department of Defense and the State Department. On Monday, August 16, 2021, John Sopko, stated 

It’s not surprising I mean, we’ve been warning”my little agency”for the last almost 10 years about issues with the [Afghan National Security Forces’] capabilities and sustainment. All the signs have been there. I mean, we’ve been shining a light on it in multiple reports going back to when I started in 2012 about changing metrics, about ghosts, ghost soldiers who didn’t exist, about poor logistics, about the fact that the Afghans couldn’t sustain what we were giving them.

Apparently, the leaders of both the Department of Defense, the Department of State, and congressional oversight committees have received reports and heard testimony about the lack of readiness and sustainability of the Afghan security forces for nearly a decade. The Secretaries of Defense since 2012 all need to answer four simple questions. First, Did you believe the SIGAR reports or chose to ignore them? Second, Did you even attempt to train Afghan security forces to fight without US air support, both in training exercises and actual combat where emergency backup air support was available to prevent excessive losses if necessary? Third, Did regular Afghan security forces ever win a major battle against the Taliban without US air support; if they did, how many such battles did they win per year; and did the number of such victories decline since 2012? Forth, With the possible exception of Afghan special forces, when, if ever, did you know the Afghan security forces would not be able to win most of their battles without US air support.

The fact that a civilian, like me, with little strategic or tactical knowledge of two decades the political and military situation in Afghanistan is compelled to ask these questions both saddens and sickens me. I fear that the answers will demonstrate that our military and political leaders have either deceived We the People of the United States or they deceived themselves. Either way, the blood and treasure lost since Seal Team 6 killed Osama Bin-Laden in 2011 was, in my opinion, lost in a vain effort to sustain the unsustainable.

Finally, the greatest Afghanistan failure rests solely with President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Biden thought that his 50 years of failed experience gave him the insight to disregard the advice of the entire pentagon, intelligence community, and Department of State. He concluded that we’ll do it my way.  He ordered a rapid draw down of the few troops remaining forcing the field commander to choose between closing Bagram Airbase or the US Embassy in Kabul. The commander chose the Embassy with its civilian personal and classified documents and materials that had to be destroyed. The result was the loss of the two runways at Bagram Airbase leaving one runway at the Kabul airport for evacuation of US Embassy personal and other US civilians, other country’s civilians, and Afghanis who had supported allied operations in Afghanistan.  By that time, all US military personal, less than 1,000, and a few thousand US civilians and Afghanis reached the Kabul airport; and the Taliban controlled most of the country, roads to Kabul, and surrounded the only evacuation site in Afghanistan. As this was occurring, Biden authorized insertion of 5-6,000 prepositioned troops to secure the Kabul airport.

This withdrawal, ordered by Biden, was done unilaterally without coordination with our NATO allies Brittan, France, and Australia that also have military personal and civilians stranded behind enemy lines. The Department of State does not know how many US passport holders are now stranded behind enemy lines but estimates at least 11,000. Between 40,000 and 80,000 Afghanis and NATO citizens eligible to evacuate may also be stranded behind enemy lines. The Department of State told these civilians to make their way to the Kabul airport but stated that the United States could not guarantee safe travel. These civilians could have as many as 500 miles to travel through enemy territory including an untold number of checkpoints and undisciplined Taliban fighters. The final insult to those stranded behind enemy lines came from Secretary of Defense Austin who indicated that no mission to extract stranded groups of civilians or establish evacuation corridors are currently planned. The 50,000 to 90,000 civilians stranded behind enemy lines will have to fend for themselves. Biden is solely responsible for the blood of these civilians that he trapped behind enemy lines because he did it my way!

Several military analysists indicated that our withdrawal plan was totally flawed. US civilians, Afghanis civilian allies, NATO civilians, and other nationality civilians should have been evacuated before our military drawdown so their evacuation could be protected. Second, our significant military equipment should have been removed from Afghanistan prior to our withdrawal of military personal, especially if we suspected that the Afghan military and government would fall to the Taliban. The final step of the withdrawal should have been withdrawal of our military personal. The fact that the order of our withdrawal occurred in reverse of the above sequence is the reason that thousands of US and other civilians are stranded behind enemy lines and the Taliban now owns large numbers of our best military equipment and technology.

Biden’s Afghanistan failure constitutes the most humiliating and significant military and foreign policy defeats in modern US history. Many of our allies including the NATO countries of Brittan, France, and Australia have lost confidence in the United States. This is also a humanitarian tragedy of major proportion that will occur under Taliban rule.

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