Archive for November, 2018

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Were American POWs left behind in Vietnam and Laos in 1975 ?

Tuesday, November 6th, 2018

I remember the POW/MIA movement in the 1980s that even went so far as to make and attend movies on that theme.

Videos are still being shown on military sites.

Wikipedia has an article on the topic.

Considerable speculation and investigation has contributed to a hypothesis that a significant number of missing U.S. soldiers from the Vietnam Conflict were captured as prisoners of war by Communist forces and kept as live prisoners after U.S. involvement in the war concluded in 1973. A vocal group of POW/MIA activists maintains that there has been a concerted conspiracy by the Vietnamese and American governments since then to hide the existence of these prisoners. The U.S. government has steadfastly denied that prisoners were left behind or that any effort has been made to cover up their existence. Popular culture has reflected the “live prisoners” theory, most notably in the 1985 film Rambo: First Blood Part II. Several congressional investigations have looked into the issue, culminating with the largest and most thorough, the United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs of 1991–1993 led by Senators John Kerry, Bob Smith, and John McCain. It found “no compelling evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia.

Is there “no compelling evidence ?”

This is an interesting, although lengthy, discussion of the matter.

That article was written in 2008 when John McCain was the candidate for President.

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The election is tomorrow.

Monday, November 5th, 2018

I have no idea what the election will produce tomorrow. I don’t trust the polls, although they have been scaring the Democrats by shifting from a “Blue Wave” to uncertainty the past month. This sort of thing is one reason why the polls are shifting.

Here is a pretty good analysis that seems realistic to me.

It is not very optimistic but there is no way to tell until after the election.

Here is another column that agrees with me on the issues.

The accusations against Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford are unproven and were used as a battering ram to try to force him to withdraw. The other accusations were even less credible.

The letter, which claimed that Kavanaugh and friend raped her repeatedly in the “backseat of car,” was investigated, Grassley said, despite “being from an anonymous accuser,” with “no return address,” “timeframe,” or “location” of the alleged assaults.

Remarkably, the woman identified as Munro-Leighton reached out to Senate Judiciary staff by email, identifying herself as “Jane Doe from Oceanside CA.” This was on Oct. 3, 2018, three days before Kavanaugh was sworn in. The email contained a typed-up version of the anonymously written letter, repeated that Jane Doe was raped by Kavanaugh, but was “deathly afraid of revealing any information about myself or my family.”

An investigation into Munro-Leighton followed and Grassley says they found she was a “left-wing activist” who is “decades older than Judge Kavanaugh” and lives in Kentucky. Committee investigators attempted to follow up on Oct. 29, but did not speak with Munro-Leighton on the phone until Thursday, Nov. 1.

Blasey Ford probably did know Kavanaugh in high school where both attended expensive private schools in Maryland. The role of her “life long best friend” is a matter of interest.

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How I do not deal with the stress of the mid-terms.

Saturday, November 3rd, 2018

I am told that Democrats are dealing with the stress of the midterm elections by eating and drinking.

Commissioned by the fitness site Daily Burn, a poll conducted by YouGov shows Democrats are 50 percent more likely than Republicans to be stress-eating, drinking and over-exercising, NBC News reported.

Personally, I’m dieting, trying to get under 200 pounds.

Most of my stress in life at the time has to do with the USC Football Team. And its coach.

The coach was hoping that the would be an easy win. Oregon state is, after all, only 2 and 6.

However, the game is close at half time and the SC team has not been known this season for good second half efforts.

Fortunately, the defense finally stepped up in the second half and we won. This has been a disappointing season but I am used to them. The university is run by people who are vaguely ashamed of the football program. They would rather be Harvard. I have been a USC fan and alumnus since 1956. I have seen two great football programs destroyed by the administration. John McKay left SC in 1975 with a strong program that was taken over by his assistant, John Robinson.

Robinson had a successful record with national championships in 1978 and 1979. In 1982, he and Marv Goux, a longtime coach, were implicated in a mini-scandal. It involved players taking a speech course at an Arizona college which provided them all with A grades and helped with overall GPA. In addition, Marv Goux, a long time assistant coach, had been helping the players to sell their unused free tickets to games for extra money. There was nothing illegal about selling the tickets but the combination of the speech class and the long term practice of helping them sell tickets resulted in suspension of both coaches.

The speech class scandal was the result of the administration appointing junior faculty to monitor players’ academic performance. The coaches had always done this and were wise to players’ evasions of rules. The young academics became enthralled with their relationship with players on a nationally ranked team and failed to police the speech class evasion. Of course, once the story became public, the coaches and not the faculty “monitors” were blamed. Robinson had a contract provision that provided “tenure” as a full professor, a provision that McKay had negotiated and which was included in Robinson’s contract.

Robinson then spent an idle year after which he left to coach the Los Angeles Rams.

Ten years of mediocrity for the football program followed under coaches Ted Tollner and Larry Smith.

Marv Goux went to the Rams with Robinson and stayed as a Rams coach and then administrator until 1990, after which, in 1994, he became ill with cancer. Goux took with him the spirit of Trojan football, a consideration ignored by the administrators.

Robinson returned in 1993 and his team won three Rose Bowls but his recruiting spark had gone and he left after the 1997 season. He coached at UNLV from 1999 to 2004 but had only modest success. USC then hired Paul Hackett, an NFL offensive coordinator, who had a poor record for two years before returning to the NFL in 2001.

Pete Carroll had been an NFL coach but was fired by the New England Patriots in 1999. He spent the next year out of coaching. His best coaching jobs had been as defensive coordinator, which would stand him in good stead when he took over at SC in 2001.

Carroll was hired for the next season by the San Francisco 49ers, where he served as defensive coordinator for the following two seasons (1995–96). His return to success as the defensive coordinator led to his hiring as the head coach of the New England Patriots in 1997, replacing coach Bill Parcells, who had resigned after disputes with the team’s ownership. His 1997 Patriots team won the AFC East division title, but his subsequent two teams did not fare as well—losing in the wild card playoff round in 1998, and missing the playoffs after a late-season slide in 1999—and he was fired after the 1999 season. Patriots owner Robert Kraft said firing Carroll was one of the toughest decisions he has had to make since buying the team, stating, “A lot of things were going on that made it difficult for him to stay, some of which were out of his control.

Paul Hackett was fired at the end of the 2000 season but the school had no good prospect to replace him.

Carroll was named the Trojans’ head coach on December 15, 2000, signing a five-year contract after USC had gone through a tumultuous 18-day search to replace fired coach Paul Hackett.[15][16][17] He was not the Trojans’ first choice, and was considered a long shot as the USC Athletic Department under Director Mike Garrett initially planned to hire a high-profile coach with recent college experience.[18] Meanwhile Carroll, who had not coached in over a year and not coached in the college ranks since 1983, drew unfavorable comparisons to the outgoing Hackett

Garrett did not recruit Carroll and the story is that Carroll was visiting his daughter, a student as SC, when he walked into Garrett’s office and offered himself as a coach. This would have subsequent consequences.

After a slow first season with Hackett recruited players, Carroll’s teams proceeded to go 67–7 over the next 74 games, winning two national championships and playing for another.

Watching the Alabama-LSU game last night, I noted the commentators describing the “arrogance” of Alabama as an asset and commenting that SC under Pete Carroll had had the same certainty of winning. His teams were particularly notable for improving the play in the second half, a sign of good coaching.

The administration next destroyed the program after a scandal over Reggie Bush, a star player in 2006, erupted when it was revealed that a would-be agent arranged to buy a house for Bush’s parents in San Diego.

Allegations that Bush’s family received hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts was first reported in September 2006, which was just months after the New Orleans Saints took him with the No. 2 overall selection in the 2006 NFL Draft.

Once investigations began, Bush immediately denied that he had taken wrong actions. Of course, fast forward a few years later to the present-day, and it’s apparent that he had.

It ended with Bush returning the Heisman trophy he was awarded in 2005. The award was surrendered in 2010. There were allegations that Carroll knew about the scandal but none were proven.

The story that I have heard about what happened next is that Carroll, having learned about the developing scandal, went to Garrett and asked if the university was going to support him. Getting a noncommittal reply from Garrett who had no attachment to Carroll, Pete chose to accept the most recent offer he had had from the NFL.

On January 11, 2010, it was reported that Carroll would be leaving USC to coach the Seattle Seahawks. Carroll had told his players the previous evening that he would be resigning his position with the Trojans to become the new head coach of the Seattle Seahawks. According to the Los Angeles Times, Carroll came to agreement with the Seahawks on a 5-year $33 million contract to become head coach.

The SC football program has descended, once again, into mediocrity.

Todd McNair, a running backs coach under Carroll, was let go and punished by being suspended from coaching, as he was rumored to have been connected to Bush, an association he has denied and he has sued the NCAA for damages.

Meanwhile SC football has suffered through Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkesian who was hired in spite of rumored alcohol problems in Seattle, and now Clay Helton.

If I were a top prospect as a coach, I would be leery of this program which seems faintly ashamed of its football team.

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I have quit commenting on Althouse blog and have stopped reading or commenting at Patterico.

Saturday, November 3rd, 2018

UPDATE: One more reason why I don’t comment there anymore.

Blogger Fernandistein said…
I have not seen any comments from [Michael K.] in the past few days.

It’s been quite nice; I’m hoping he’s dead.

Life is too short for angry politics. I am long retired from medical practice and have been particularly interested in politics since 9/11. The Risks of Islamic terror have preoccupied me to some degree, and I began blogging about it in 2009.

The Erdogan government took over Parliament in 2002 and placed many of their members in key positions in the judiciary.

On May 5, 2006, the Ankara Criminal Court overturned the verdict against Gülen. While a public prosecutor — a secularist hold-out — appealed the court’s action, the process is now nearing conclusion. Gülen’s supporters are ecstatic. His slate wiped clean, Gülen has indicated he may soon return to Turkey.

This would be very bad news. In another example of her clumsy manipulation of other people’s business, Condaleeza Rice is about to interfere on the side of the Erdogan government.

I was not impressed with Ms Rice as a Secretary of State although her namesake, Susan Rice, would have been far worse.

I was not at all confident Trump would win the 2016 election.

The onslaught of conspiracy theories from the left since the election has stirred me to some anger but it is not healthy to get too wrapped up in the such things, especially having to deal with the angry left, which is now nearly insane.

I quit Patterico after the election, especially after the controversy about Roy Moore in Alabama. Patrick Frey was once what I considered a friend but, after he accused me of lying because I disagreed with him, I have abandoned his blog. It is not worth reading anymore as many of his previous interesting commenters have left.

There are still interesting people commenting at Althouse so I will skim the comments to look for interesting points and links.

Meanwhile there are interesting books to read that are stacked up in my “to read”pile. I am also trying to review my Calculus and Physics from 60 years ago, which will require reviewing some more basic math.

Lots to do and not too many years left to do it. Meanwhile, I continue to read and comment at other blogs, especially Chicagoboyz where I often post as well. I will try to do some more medical posts, which I have neglected.

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Posted in elections, personal, politics | 11 Comments »

Fifty five years ago this week, the Vietnam War was lost,

Friday, November 2nd, 2018

On October 29, 1963 President John F Kennedy authorized the coup that overthrew Ngo Dinh Diem.

Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, were murdered the next day by a South Vietnamese Army Captain as they sought shelter with loyal troops.


Records of the Kennedy national security meetings, both here and in our larger collection, show that none of JFK’s conversations about a coup in Saigon featured consideration of what might physically happen to Ngo Dinh Diem or Ngo Dinh Nhu. The audio record of the October 29th meeting which we cite below also reveals no discussion of this issue. That meeting, the last held at the White House to consider a coup before this actually took place, would have been the key moment for such a conversation. The conclusion of the Church Committee agrees that Washington gave no consideration to killing Diem. (Note 12) The weight of evidence therefore supports the view that President Kennedy did not conspire in the death of Diem. However, there is also the exceedingly strange transcript of Diem’s final phone conversation with Ambassador Lodge on the afternoon of the coup (Document 23), which carries the distinct impression that Diem is being abandoned by the U.S. Whether this represents Lodge’s contribution, or JFK’s wishes, is not apparent from the evidence available today.

Kennedy had recruited Lodge, who he considered a likely 1964 Republican opponent, as a way of embroiling him in the Vietnam situation and preventing him from using it as a campaign issue. Lodge, it turned out, was a more militant enemy of Diem than Kennedy anticipated.

Max Boot, who has lost his mind since the Trump election, wrote an excellent biography of Edward Lansdale called “The Road NotTaken,” which described Lansdale’s successful work in the Philippines as a CIA agent in suppressing the Huk Rebellion. Lansdale tried to adapt his methods that had succeeded in the Philippines to Vietnam.

There were considerable differences. For one, the Philippines were islands while South Vietnam was not and the Viet Cong had sanctuaries in Cambodia and North Vietnam was able to supply them via the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Still, Lansdale had had some success in trying to get President Diem to adopt some methods that had worked in the Philippines. Lansdale was vigorously opposed by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who was absolutely opposed to psychological war techniques and wanted quantifiable measures, like body counts. McNamara blocked Lansdale from access to Diem in spite of Diem’s requests to meet with him.

The ultimate effect of United States participation in the overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem was to commit Washington to Saigon even more deeply. Having had a hand in the coup America had more responsibility for the South Vietnamese governments that followed Diem. That these military juntas were ineffectual in prosecuting the Vietnam war then required successively greater levels of involvement from the American side. The weakness of the Saigon government thus became a factor in U.S. escalations of the Vietnam war, leading to the major ground war that the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson opened in 1965.

It also presented President Lyndon Johnson with an insoluble problem when he assumed office less than a month later after the Kennedy assassination.

Had the coup not been encouraged and occurred, the South Vietnam War might have been written off as an unsolvable problem and one we were not completely committed to. Instead, Johnson decided he could not “lose a war” and he sent thousands of American draftees to die in Vietnam for no useful purpose.

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The Papadapoulos sting operation.

Thursday, November 1st, 2018

One of the branches of the FBI/CIA /DNC Trump operation has been to entrap and prosecute Trump associates. The first was The Michael Flynn prosecution.

General Flynn was DIA head at one time in the Obama administration. He became Trump’s National Security Assistant after the election. He was visited by FBI agent Peter Strzok on the pretext pf establishing the FBI presence in the White House, but, in fact, it was a setup to entrap him. The NSA had intercepted a telephone call between Flynn and the Russian ambassador, as part of his normal duties. The transcript of that call was used to charge Flynn with “lying to a federal officer” in spite of the fact that Strzok and the other agent reported that Flynn had not lied. Acting Deputy AG Sally Yates, an Obama holdover, decided to charge him anyway and he eventually pled guilty to avoid crushing legal fees and threats against his son.

Paul Manafort, a late hire of the Trump campaign, was similarly prosecuted by Mueller for actions taken years before he met Trump and probably at the instigation of Ukranian political figures who opposed the people Manafort worked for.

The most recent revelations concern George Papadopoulos, who was briefly a member of the Trump campaign but held no office in the Administration.

George Papadopoulos and his wife Simone Mangiante approached in Greece by a known CIA/FBI operative, Charles Tawil. Mr. Tawil enlists George as a business consultant, under the auspices of energy development interests, and hands him $10,000 in cash to take back to the U.S. Upon arrival at the Dulles airport Robert Mueller had FBI agents waiting. Papadopoulos was stopped and searched; however, he never had the cash because he smartly left it in Greece with his lawyer. Further:

[W]hen he was arrested at Dulles Airport on July 27 after coming off a flight from Munich, prosecutors had no warrant for him and no indictment or criminal complaint. The complaint would be filed the following morning and approved by Howell in Washington.

This was a setup in an attempt to “turn” a Trump associate and force him to testify about alleged Russian possession of Hillary Clinton emails.

The FBI who met Papadopoulos at the airport had no warrant, no indictment and no criminal complaint…. because they believed George would be carrying the evidence they would need to structure their legal leverage.

The FBI behavior became a scramble, and the DOJ needed their hastily constructed indictment to be sealed, because their initial leverage fell through. The $10,000 was a set up.

Unless the Democrats can take over the House and the Intelligence Committee, this will likely blow wide open the whole Mueller witch hunt.

One more question about Mueller and his operation. What, if anything, did Mueller have to do with the Whitey Bulgar hit in prison this week ?

89-year-old Boston mob boss James ‘Whitey’ Bulger was killed in prison by a ‘fellow inmate with mafia ties’ shortly after he was transferred to a West Virginia federal prison.

Bulger was reportedly wheeled away from security cameras and beaten with a lock in a sock and also had his eyes gouged out.

Sources told The Daily Mail that Whitey Bulger was about to out people in the FBI, specifically FBI officials of the informant program.

Mueller was described by Representative Gohmert as Acting US Attorney in Boston during the years that Bulgar was an FBI informant.

Gohmert’s report is here.

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