Written by the author of Rogue Journey, Asia, 1934-1975, the way it was for me, and Vietnam Journey, ten years in the Nam, a family at war story via Saudi Arabia Our Most Reliable Middle East Ally
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Monthly Archives: October 2018
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Saudi Arabia Our Most Reliable Middle East Ally
Posted at 6:13 am , on October 28, 2018
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Saudi Arabia Our Most Reliable Middle East Ally
Posted at 6:00 am , on October 28, 2018
Greetings Readers,
The Trump Administration says, and I understand completely, Saudi Arabia is our closest ally in the Middle East as well as our best arms customer. But how about Israel, they’re in the Middle East too? Oh, I forgot… they’re our fifty-first state. You can’t beat the Zionists for hiding in plain sight.
‘Ron, Ron, stop it, stop it. People will think you are a Palestinians whose land has been taken.’
All the Best to you’
Ron Miller
PS: Sorry, drafted and sent out to other readers hours before the Pittsburg Synagogue massacre that killed eleven and injured six. My sincerest condolences.
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Violent Political Rhetoric
Posted at 4:26 am , on October 28, 2018
Written by the author of Rogue Journey, Asia, 1935-1975, the way it was for me; and Vietnam Journey, ten years in the Nam, a family at war story, via Violent Political Rhetoric
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Violent Political Rhetoric
Posted at 4:20 am , on October 28, 2018
Greetings Readers,
Yes, Trump is right again. The Media must stop the inflammatory talk because we know our president never does and probably never will. If you have seen his last rally, or three, and in particular the last one just after the domestic terrorist bomb packges were discovered, you know Trump’s hypocritical head is not screwed on right. He simply does not know Black from White.
Wall Street has lost all its gains made in 2018. Yep, the loss may have weakened his most influential domestic base pillar, but let us not forget the massive tax reduction he initiated and pushed through with the able assistance of the GOP and Democratic Congress for the benefit of the Street is Permanent. The Street still owes Trump Big Time for that.
Presently the GOP and the FOx Network have been battling the Dems and liberals as violent mobs, are down playing the terrorist bomb packages episode and are hitting hard on the themes of immigration and the greatness of our economic prosperity. Winning the midterms is all important. So, get out and vote. I live overseas and have my absentee ballot in hand already .
All the Best to you.
Ron Miller
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Flash… Surprise Breaking News
Posted at 7:35 am , on October 20, 2018
via Flash… Surprise Breaking News written by the author of Rogue Journey, Asia, 1935-1975, the way it was for me, a bio, and Vietnam Journey, ten years in the Nam, a family at war story.
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Flash… Surprise Breaking News
Posted at 7:23 am , on October 20, 2018
Greetings Readers,
(1) Woke this morning to breaking news: The Saudis admitted the U. S. green card holder and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi is dead and had died in the Saudi Consulate in Turkey. Well what do you know about that? It caught me by surprise. Actually, it surprised the hell out of me.
The Director of Saudi Intelligence has been sacked and eighteen (18) men have been arrested; the Crown Prince did not know a thing, not a darn thing about the incident. He was caught completely unaware. The group involved were renegades, rogues, mercenaries, and Muslim trash.
Jamal died during a simple fist fight during an overheated conversation between Khashoggi and his interrogator.
(You know like the kind of fist fights they occasionally have in New York’s Bowery, Detroit, Michigan’s Skid Row, or any ordinary standard Darwin, Australian Pub. Yeah, those quarrels and brawls can turn vicious)
The death was not premeditated, more like an accident…. i. e. Bone saws are merely standard passenger carry-on equipment for Israeli and Saudi Intel agents.
Aallegedly the hit on Khashogii was an unauthorized operation possibly “semi-officially ” initiated by the Intelligence Directorate, and heads will definitely roll over it no matter who or what. That is unless…. Trump pardons them.
Trump and Pompeo coached the young Crown Prince well indeed. (Keep your mouth shut) Those deceptive operations, like the U. S. Bay of Pig fiasco when failed have known a second stage of accusations as “Search for the Guilty” “Scapegoat” and a favorite of Filipinos, they say “a Fall Guy.”
In the political sweep, the real scapegoat, is the goat prince Salman, as the silly President Donald Trump says “We are waiting for more information”?
(2) Trump seems to advocate, or at least condone violence against the Press, and other enemies of the people. (The body slamming episode of a reporter during the campaign, etc.) Trump’s base, as FOx Network is part, outrageously claim the GOP is targeted by liberals gone wild with violence. Well, yes… to be fair, there have been death threats made to a few GOP senators. I know this to be correct, because I’ve sent out several myself last week.
Can you take a JOKE?
All the Best to You.
Ron
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A Memory of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Posted at 10:51 am , on October 16, 2018
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A Memory of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Posted at 10:50 am , on October 16, 2018
Greetings Readers,
In 1978 I was Chief of Storage in Riyadh for the Corps of Engineers and Pacific Architects and Engineers for about four months until my family arrived to join me in relocating to Jeddah on the Red Sea. Our work site was about two kilometers over open desert brush fields from the newly constructed Marriott Hotel where the U. S. Air Force aerial surveillance team were quartered. When I arrived there were at least 130 forty-foot shipping containers ready to be opened and unloaded into our new warehouse.
One evening on the daily trash run, two Somali bothers took the warehouse truck to dispose of the day’s excess materials to the central waste dump, but the guys were anxious, weary, and lazy and deliberately unloaded it in an open brush field not far from the hotel. They were observed by the Saudi police arrested, jailed overnight, given a citation, and the Corps office was notified. The next day our organization was tasked to clear and clean the entire extensive area of all trash no mattering we had only a very few unauthorized load drops there, if that? But we had been caught in the act.
The company procurement office, headed by a shrewd or perhaps deliberately incompetent Philippine manager wrote the boiler plate contract to clear the abundant scrap materials lying about the desert fields nearby. In the contract the manager failed to specify the size of the truck (s) to be utilized to haul away the scrap etc. to the central disposal yard. Each truck was paid by the trip and not by weight or count whether it carried 400 lbs. or tons or no matter how much it carried or not carry per load. The small light vehicles like pickup trucks got the same rate per load as larger cargo trucks.
On the day to begin the clean up and relocation approximately 80 trucks and two forklifts showed up. Perhaps seven our of each ten were the size of pickups or light trucks and could at most carry a light ton of miscellaneous trash and scrap material. Paid by the trip with the advantage of light loads contractors and perhaps the Procurement Manager really cleaned up by costing the project a lot more $ money than intended. The task took near three days when it should have been one and indirectly, directly cost the Corps, U. S. Government thousands of unnecessary additional dollars to clear the mess.
The sharp procurement manager was a nice fellow and we all liked the chap. The Corps Engineers with our director, a retired Air Force General, gave our contract performance a 98% evaluation that month despite another one or two fiascos like the one mentioned above. (Forty rows of overloaded newly erected Link shelving collapsed in a cloud of dust one lunchtime killing one cat. When I arrived the dust was so thick pouring out of the main gateway, I thought it a hot on going fire)
Each month or so it was my practice to give a humorous low-cost award to the most outstanding team or department leader. Because of screw-ups like this one they were not always for merit. On the Arabian desert it was not too uncommon to find dried bones scattered about, some of which were goat skulls. We found the best one we could, framed it and presented it to the Procurement Manager in my office. I kept a Polaroid photo of the humorous two-minute ceremony for years before discarding it during lengthy travels.
Years later, I, we, thought back of being much too hard on the manager because the loads lay diverse and widely scattered sometime in small quantities. However the cause of the expensive operation was tantamount to dropping a tissue and plastic bottle on a main street and having to clear and clean the entire avenue and back allies too.
All the Best to you.
Ron Miller
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The Economist, Judge Kavanaugh, and Saudi Journalist Khashoggi.
Posted at 3:40 pm , on October 15, 2018
via The Economist, Judge Kavanaugh, and Saudi Journalist Khashoggi. Authored by the writer of Rogue Journey, Asia, 1935- 1975, the way it was for me, and Vietnam Journey, ten years in the Nam, a family at war story.
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The Economist, Judge Kavanaugh, and Saudi Journalist Khashoggi.
Posted at 3:36 pm , on October 15, 2018
Greetings Readers,
I have always, well probably for decades at least, admired the British weekly magazine, the Economist. Never a small cursory issue, but an in-depth extensive well written detailed reporting with frequent inside the news stories in every issue. One can read Time Magazine in about an hour. I have never read the Economist with some degree of speed for under three. Usually with care one farms many significant facts and details that do not appear easily in any of the other weekly periodicals
I admire its accuracy and opinions. It is a well thought out and thoroughly researched publication before the print is set. I do not know how they do it? The magazine must have superb reporters and experts devoted to the magazine in every country. The imperialist, colonist British press in times gone by in all probability got the jump on other western media publications for two hundred years, and the Economist as recipient of this history has deservedly gotten solid international popularity because of it.
During the past years I have subscribed to the magazine several times, but it often did no arrive because I suspect it was pilfered and resold to a group of local academic fans, or in lieu of poor postal service and constant moving about by this addressee.
Within the magazine this week was of the Kavanaugh vs. Ford , she said, he said, row decision in senate’s favor of Kavanaugh by passing his nomination by two votes within the conundrum of two personal political personality.
In pure politics and law Kavanauagh was unwilling to show impartiality in legal decisions, not only by his own ranting words against the Democrats, but his long supportive loyalist GOP career. The candidate has never been neutral in or on issue that the Economist could research and fully determine while on the staff of Ken Starr’s impeachment efforts against Bill Clinton, and when on the staff of George Bush which was firmly against the second ballot recount during the Florida presidential election bid that gave Bush the victory in the 2000 election. The decision was outright closed with only a mere 600 state votes bush lead. The decision was then finalized by the GOP governor agreeing to it. (Perhaps, just perhaps, if Gore had won there would not have been an Iraq ll?)
Moreover, as an aside note, the text of the FBI investigation report was softened, perhaps deliberately as not to embarrass, but college school boy’s word for “spoofing” meant not what was reported, its meaning is three-way sex, anal sex, and induction of alcohol and drugs. To be fair Brett may not have ever meant that after supporting it in writing.
Yes, from what I surmise, as the most important swing vote in the Supreme Court Kavanaugh will support anything placed before him by the Trump and the GOP. He is safely under their wing for his term for life and for the swing vote power he now holds in his hand.
Under the FOx network Trump and his Administration can do no wrong, as Trump dickers and threatens ‘Severe punishment’ against those responsible for the alleged Khashoggi — Saudi Arabia — assassination fray. No concrete proof has surfaced thus far except the deep-seated suspicion the target of the assassination was Khashoggi, is highly suspected to be dead and has complete disappeared from the face of the earth. However, the Saudis have ventured other confidential explanations for the disappearance:
1. Khashoggi was walking on slippery marble steps and fell by accident killing himself. The Saudis were so embarrassed by the incident, because the janitor was the cause not performing his duties satisfactorily was immediately beheaded on the spot. The accident was not reported to the outside world. Jamal’s dismembered and pulverized body was flushed down the toilet.
2. Nearly similar in some aspects. Khashoggi was applying for a license to marry his Turkish sweetheart whom he loved deeply, and was told she was not a virgin and shown video proof. At that Jamal became distraught, felt dishonored, disgraced and committed suicide. Under Muslim law the dead must be buried before sunset, but no means were available, so it was decided to dismember and dispose of him by flushing the parts down the toy-toy.
3. Jamal Khashoggi was an agnostic, and at the last moment after a friendly beating he regretted being one therefore for himself his family and loved ones became a born again Muslim of deep faith. Allah and Mohammed were delighted on hearing the new and they immediately sent a white horse with feathered wings to take him from Jerusalem directly to heaven. He was invisibly whisked away in seconds from the Consulate. (The Muslims disregard animal and humankind types with the assistance of evolution took 100 million years to create the feather, presently man can make feathers with machines)
Sorry, but I don’t quite believe those reasons. But I do know this, kings and dictators want complete power and need to destroy dissent in any form. Evil anti-government non conforming ideas must be destroyed. They then make examples of dissenters with poison, bombs, armed drones, and hit squads which are more effective than says torture, prison terms, and surveillance.
As an older observer writing this I recall comedian Bob Hope returning from Cold War Russia in the 1950s and authoring a humorous book (I Owe Russia $1200 Dollars) in which he wrote ‘In Russia they have television, but you don’t watch it, it watches you’ and ‘In Russia you can say anything about the government, the difference is, you say it only once.’
All the Best to you.
Ron Miller
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