Filed under: Foreign Policy, National Security, Russia | Tags: Putin, Russian Ambition, Winston Churchill
From The Wall Street Journal’s “Notable and Quotable” column. The quotation comes from “What Would Churchill Do” by Mark W. Davis, a former speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush, Summer issue 2015 Wilson Quarterly.
During the Cold War, Churchill preached a stoic optimism equal to the long task of countering and containing Moscow’s designs. He said of the Russian people that the “machinery of propaganda may pack their minds with falsehood and deny them truth for many generations of time. But the soul of man thus held in trance, or frozen in a long night, can be awakened by a spark coming from God knows where, and in a moment the whole structure of lies and oppression is on trial for its life.”
The power of social media is the true “soft underbelly” of this regime. Putin himself revealed his fear of Facebook and Twitter when he signed new laws requiring social networks to store data on Russian users in Russia, subjecting them to censorship. The public murder of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemstov has opened the minds of young Russia, giving the West an opportunity to make the most of cracks and crevices in Putin’s firewalls. For the West, the best strategy is a policy of patience, firmness, and determination to undermine the Putin regime and frustrate its forays—for decades, if need be—until the day when the whole structure of its lies and oppression are put on trial by young Russians.
And we should remember Winston Churchill’s final bit of advice as he prepared to leave office: “Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair.”
ADDENDUM: Also in the Wall Street Journal, Holman Jenkins suggests that Russia’s president clearly seems to be lifting strategies from the Hitler playbook, likely deliberately so. Perhaps Obama is not alone in searching for a “legacy.”
Heh Heh. You’re welcome.
Much has been made about the ability of ISIS to master social media to recruit and broadcast their victories. But the U.S. Air Force is turning the militant group’s eagerness to share on social media into that intelligence that produces targets.
Air Force Gen. Hawk Carlisle, head of Air Combat Command, described Monday how airmen at Hurlburt Field, Florida, with the 361st Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group, recognized a comment on social media and turned that into an airstrike that resulted in three Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) missiles destroying am Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) headquarters building.
“It was a post on social media to bombs on target in less than 24 hours,” Carlisle said. “Incredible work when you think about.”
Carlisle was careful not to share all of the Air Force’s secrets to include the location of the building but this is how he told the story at the recent breakfast meeting in Washington D.C. hosted by the Air Force Association.
“The guys that were working down out of Hurlburt, they’re combing through social media and they see some moron standing at this command. And in some social media, open forum, bragging about the command and control capabilities for Daesh, ISIL. And these guys go: ‘We got an in.’ So they do some work, long story short, about 22 hours later through that very building, three [Joint Direct Attack Munitions] take that entire building out.” (Continue reading)
(h/t: Weasel Zippers and Defense Tech )
Filed under: Europe, History, Military, United Kingdom | Tags: June 6 - 1944, Lord Lovat's 1st Special Service Brigade, Sword Beach
Bill Millin, Lord Lovat’s personal piper, is pictured here ready to jump from the ramp of the landing craft into the icy water of Sword beach on June 6, D–Day, 1944. Lord Lovat is thigh-deep in the water just to the left of Bill Millin’s arm. As the Telegraph obituary says: “As the Cameron tartan of his kilt floated to the surface he struck up with Hieland Laddie. He continued to pipe even as the man behind him was hit, dropped into the sea and sank.
Millin said “I was so relieved of getting off that boat after all night being violently sick. When I finished, Lovat asked for another tune. Well, when I looked round — the noise and people lying about shouting and the smoke, the crump of mortars, I said to myself “Well, you must be joking surely.” He said “What was that?” and he said “Would you mind giving us a tune?” “Well, what tune would you like, Sir?” “How about The Road to the Isles?” “Now, would you want me to walk up and down, Sir?” “Yes, That would be nice. Yes, walk up and down.”
And that’s what Bill Millin did, walked up and down the invasion beach at water’s edge, blasting out a series of tunes. Bodies of the fallen were drifting to and fro in the surf. Soldiers were trying to dig in and, when they heard the pipes, many of them waved and cheered — though one came up to Millin and called him “a mad bastard.”
For many soldiers, the piper provided a unique boost to morale. “I shall never forget hearing the skirl of Bill Millin’s pipes” said one, Tom Duncan, many years later. “It is hard to describe the impact it had. It gave us a great lift and increased our determination. As well as the pride we felt, it reminded us of home and why we were there fighting for our lives and those of our loved ones.”
After the Great War the War Office had banned pipers from leading soldiers into battle after losses had become too great. “Ah, but that’s the English War Office,” Lovat told Millin. You and I are both Scottish and that doesn’t apply.” Millin was the only piper on D-Day.
Millin died on August 17, 2010 aged 88. He piped the invasion forces on to the shores of France, unarmed apart from the ceremonial dagger in his stocking. The mayor of Colleville-Montgomery, a town on Sword Beach, has offered a site for a life-size statue of Millin opposite the place where he landed on D-Day. His pipes are in the Scottish War Museum.
Bill Millin’s personal account of D-Day is found here, and the Telegraph’s obituary is here. Millin has been justly famous in all accounts of the D-Day invasion, especially his courageous march across Pegasus Bridge at the crossing of the Orne. This may have been the last time that a Scottish piper led Scottish troops into battle.
Filed under: Canada, History, Military, The United States | Tags: Five Invasion Beaches, The Great Armed Fleet, The Longest Day
Reposted from 2013 ……..…………………………….(click to enlarge)
Wearily, he swung the glasses over to the left again. Slowly he tracked across the horizon. He reached the dead center of the bay. The glasses stopped moving. Pluskat tensed, stared hard.
Through the scattering thinning mist the horizon was filling with ships — ships of every size and description, ships that casually maneuvered back and forth as though they had been there for hours. There appeared to be thousands of them. Pluskat stared in frozen disbelief, speechless, moved as he had never been before in his life. At that moment the world of the good soldier Pluskat began falling apart. He says that in those first few moments he knew, calmly and surely, that “this was the end for Germany.” Cornelius Ryan: The Longest Day
ADDENDUM: The Greatest Generation is passing into history. The youngest who turned 18 in 1943 will be 90 years old in 2015,(not including those who lied about their age). Honor them, for they saved the world at enormous cost. Think too, of those on the home front who built the ships and planes and made the materials that won the war. They built the arsenal of Democracy.
