Tuesday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“The tongue cannot tell, the eye cannot conceive nor the pen cannot describe the horror I have seen on this day.”

US Army Captain John Tripplett, after the Battle of Antietam, near Sharpsburg, Md. September 17, 1862.

Thanks to Munki for this segment

The beginning of civilization began in what is known as “The Fertile Crescent” or the area from the north end of the Persian Gulf following the Tigris and Euphrates rivers north then west to northern Syrian and what is now coastal Lebanon on the Mediterranean. There were several small city-states clustered near the northern end of the Persian Gulf (near present day Basra, Iraq) among them was Kish and Akkad. There was a young man of vision named Sargon living in Akkad. Civil war erupted in Kish and turmoil resulted. Sargon went over and took control and from there he expanded his powers and eventually was in control of the entire Fertile Crescent. He was then known as Sargon the Great. This man modified warfare to his advantage. The usual method of warfare in those days was heavily armored infantry carrying heavy weapons and trundling into combat well aligned and shoulder to shoulder. Sargon sent his troops in with no armor and armed with only a sword and a dagger. His troops became a running cavalry, rushing in and doing as much damage as possible and then retreating and reforming and slashing again and again until all the enemy were killed or surrendered. Sargon also introduced archers into combat for the first time. The heavily armored enemy just could not move swiftly enough to avoid the hailstorm of arrows and the lightning attacks of the infantry. Sargon would capture all the important leaders of the lands he conquered and used them as an advisory group but they were really hostages. If any of the countries represented were to revolt, he would kill the representative he had in custody. Once Sargon's power was assured, there was no doubt that he was the absolute monarch and shared power with no one. He died in 2261BC.

Why are we in Afghanistan? The Russians failed there and that adventure caused the Russian government to go bankrupt and the dissolution of the USSR. Even one of the mightiest military leader in history could not conquer the Aghanis...Alexander the Great. To get any kind of cooperation Alexander had to marry an Afghani princess. To those guys, war is a way of life and has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. So why are we there? To kill those in Al-Queda? Maybe. To protect the largest business in Afghanistan which is the opium poppy crop? Maybe. But the one that profits the most is the so called US Military Industrial Complex. That would be companies like Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, McDonnell-Douglas, Sandia, Northrup, Hercules, Remington, Winchester, Colt, Federal, General Electric, Fluor, Kellogg-Brown and Root (KBR), Ingall's ship yards, etc., etc., etc. If the war in Afghanistan were to end these companies would lay off thousands not to mention those soldiers returning to the US looking for a job. As horrible as it may seem, the US crawled out of the Great Depression faster because of WWII. The US started sending the tools of war to Europe in 1937. I talked with a man the other afternoon that said he worked for Fluor and went to work at 1:30AM. I pursued that and he said that he was a buyer for Flour and his working hours had to be the same as the working hours in Afghanistan. Why does a buyer have to be that instantly available? What cannot wait until 8:00AM EST? Y'all think about all of this...it sounds like the US is willing to risk American lives to keep a certain part of the US economy afloat...or am I wrong??

This Date in History November 25

1783 On this date nearly 3 months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris ending the American Revolutionary War, the final contingent of British soldiers left New York City. New York had been continuously occupied by the British since 1776. As soon as the British withdrew the Patriot army led by George Washington marched triumphantly into the city amid a jubilant crowd. Soon thereafter New York was declared the capitol of the United States and that is where George Washington received his first inauguration as President. New York was the capitol until 1790 and then the capitol was moved to Philadelphia. As you might suspect, the Americans that remained loyal to England during the war were between a rock and a hard place after the British left, the victorious Patriots had confiscated their lands and property. England did not disappoint and gave lands in Ontario and Nova Scotia to the Loyalists. This event seriously changed the demographics and changed eastern Canada from a New France with Catholics to a majority of English speaking Protestants.

1863 On this day US General Ulysses Grant broke the siege of Chattanooga, Tennessee. A substantial number of Union troops were trapped in a semi-circle in the city of Chattanooga and had been there for several weeks with no apparent way out. When Grant arrived on the scene he changed the strategy of defense to one of aggressive offense. After opening a supply line by driving the Confederates away from the Tennessee River in mid- October, he planned a breakout to begin of November 23. The attack was in three parts with US General William T. Sherman on the left flank and US General Joseph Hooker on the right. Both on these attacks failed but the attack on the center led by US General George Thomas succeeded. The success came primarily because of confusion in the orders on both sides. Eventually, the Union troops pushed the Confederates out of their poorly prepared rifle pits and then on to the top of the ridge they were defending. This battle was know afterward as the Battle of Missionary Ridge and went a long way toward driving the Confederates out of Tennessee. After this debacle the overall Confederate commander, CSA General Braxton Bragg, blamed everyone but himself for the loss. But CSA President Jefferson Davis was not fooled and pressed for Bragg to resign which he did by having lost the confidence of his troops. His replacement was CSA General Joseph E. Johnston.

1950 The so-called “Storm of the Century” or the “Appalachian Storm” got underway. A low pressure system over North Carolina got some rotation and formed into a major storm and headed northeast. This monster dumped massive amounts of snow on West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The snow depth prevented travel in many areas for a week, and then it gathered some steam and headed into New England. It wasn’t just the snow it was the wind also. New York City recorded wind speeds of 94 MPH and on Bear Mountain north of New York there was a gust of 140 MPH recorded. The temperature on Mount Mitchell, North Carolina fell to 26 degrees below that night. The strange thing was that in Buffalo, New York the wind reached a speed of 50 MPH but the temperature never got below 50 degrees. The US weather service reported that this storm had the greatest difference in weather ever recorded in America...so far. Over 160 people died in this storm.

1876 On this date the US Cavalry launched a retaliatory raid against the Cheyenne for the Little Big Horn massacre of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and his 7^th Cavalry. After news of this event reached the east coast a public outcry was raised to intensify the “Indian War”. So the US Cavalry called up US General Ranald McKenzie from the Texas area to lead an expedition to find and punish the Cheyenne. McKenzie had good results fighting the Comanche and Kiowa tribes in Texas. He gathered 1,000 troopers and 400 Indian guides and headed out. He tracked down the Powder River and finally found a Cheyenne village under the leadership of chief Dull Knife. Then the troopers did the honorable thing. They got into position before daylight and opened fired on the sleeping village at dawn. Many Indians were killed instantly but many escaped into the nearby woods and had to watch many more being slaughtered and their winter food supplies and clothing being burned. The troopers were not done yet. They cut the throats of all of the Cheyenne ponies. After the troopers left the survivors began an 11 day journey to the village of Sioux chief Crazy Horse who took them in but many very young and elderly did not survive the walk. The next year Dull Knife talked his people into surrendering and they were sent to the “Indian Nation” in what is now the state of Oklahoma. Like I have said in the past, this era in the formation of the United States is a dark one. We came within an eyelash of total genocide because we wanted the land on which they had been living for thousands of year. Greed and avarice has no boundaries. However, there was a certain section of Oklahoma where one particular tribe was sent because it appeared to the honkies that the land was not fit for raising crops...but it was later found that section of land was afloat on a sea of oil and natural gas. That tribe is the wealthiest on Earth.

Born today:

1835 Scottish-US industrialist Andrew Carnegie. He said “The first man gets the oyster and the second one gets the shell. I love them.

1846 US temperance leader Carrie Nation. When speaking about cigarette smokers she said “I want all those hellions to quit puffing that hell fume into God’s clean air”. Hell yes Carrie, give me a good old fashioned coal fired power plant any day.

1915 Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. He said “I am not a dictator I just have a grumpy face.” I addition to the ugly face, he has the blood of thousands on his hands that were tortured and killed under his administration.

         Thanks for listening    I can hardly wait until tomorrow