Musings
and History
Quote of the day
“I am not going to
spend the later years of my life as a hermit so I
can spend an extra
two years in the geriatric ward.” Me neither.
George
Carlin
Terrorists have
attacked once again in Istanbul. Here is what history has told us
about the prevention of terrorism. In ancient Rome if there was an
attack against Rome anywhere in the world, the terrorists were
identified then that person or persons village(s) or town, family and
extended family was destroyed. The Mongols did the same thing. It
was a great deterrent. When the end of the Roman empire was evident
it was because the barbarians were more efficient at terrorism than
the Romans. The end of the war between Rome and Carthage came when
the Romans sailed over to Carthage and killed everything...not
everyone...everything and leveled every structures to where there was
not one stone standing on another then the salted the earth to where
no crops could be grown. That my is friends being a more efficient
terrorist that those that are attacking you. Today I had someone say
“You cannot punish the innocent”, but he failed to mention that
the terrorists kill without discretion. Are we suppose to stand by
and allow the indiscriminate massacre of the innocent people and be
merciful to theirs? I think not. We have the ways and means to make
that happen...is time for them to realize that terrorism can be a two
way street.
This
Date in History June 29
1776 The
South Carolina representative to the Continental Congress, Edward
Rutledge, sent a letter to John Jay of New York expressing his
misgivings about independence from Great Britain. Both he and John
Jay were ambivalent on this issue. It is understandable since both
Edward and his brother John were educated in England with both
becoming lawyers and members of the Continental Congress. Both were
very successful with their Charleston, South Carolina clientele and
they lived across the street from each other. Finally, Edward
relented and did sign the Declaration of Independence being the
youngest signer at the age of 27.
1993 On this date a
knife-wielding man broke into the Allentown, Pennsylvania home of
Denise Sam-Cali and tried to rape her. A struggle ensued but the
rapist succeeded in raping Denise on the front lawn. He then stabbed
Denise trying to kill her but she fought him off and the rapist ran
away. This courageous woman would play a big role in the resolution
of this crime. On the 9th
of July a 15 year old girl was abducted and her body was found by a
reservoir stabbed 22 times. She had been raped also. On the 15th
of July a five year old girl was abducted and raped and the attacker
unsuccessfully tried to strangle her. Then on the 19th
of July the house of Denise Sam-Cali was broken into while she was
away. The police decided to set a trap and staked out Sam-Cali’s
house and left a window enticingly open. On July 30 a man crawled
into the open window and was greeted by a policeman and a gunfight
ensued. The intruder crashed his way out through another window and
fled. A few hours later, career criminal Harvey Robinson staggered
into a hospital with two gunshot wounds. While waiting he was
recognized by a policeman and Harvey fled with the cop in close
pursuit. The cops ran Harvey down and arrested him. He went to
trial and was easily convicted due to the DNA evidence that they
retrieved from Denise Sam-Cali’s clothing. Denise had carefully
laid aside her underclothing she had on during the rape just for this
eventuality. Harvey got the death penalty. I wish I could designate
the type of death to be given to animals like this. If I could, I
promise you crimes of this sort would drop precipitously.
1941 On June 22, a
German army of 3,000,000 soldiers, thousands of tanks and aircraft
crossed into Russia as Operation Barbarossa began. It was Hitler’s
intention to subdue Russia in spite of signing a peace agreement with
Joseph Stalin less than a year before. One week after beginning this
operation, July 29, the Germans were at the door steps of Leningrad,
Moscow and Kiev. During the previous week the Germans had captured
the Ukrainian city of Lvov and slaughtered thousands and sent
thousand to German slave labor camps. Those that were not killed or
enslaved blamed the Jews for all of this and began killing the Jews
in the streets. What’s up with that? Anyway, the Germans thought
that if they were able to quickly overcome the Russian army, the
populous would side with them since Stalin was an acknowledged
monster. It didn’t happen. The Russian army was much larger than
the German intelligence had supposed and the Russian people chose the
lesser of two evils and stuck with Stalin and dug in their heels and
resisted bitterly. This decision cost the lives of 6,000,000
civilians. Eventually “General Winter” shows up in mid-October
and the German offensive ground to a halt. Because of the bitter
cold, and the German soldiers having no winter clothing, the army was
decimated. The very same thing happened about 130 years before when
a short Corsican name Bonaparte tried to do the same thing as the
Germans with the same results. The German army command believed they
could wrap this operation up by early September and winter clothing
was not necessary. They had severely miscalculated the resolve of
the Russians and paid a terrible price for it. Eventually the
Russian army got on its feet and crushed the attacking Germans and
sent them fleeing back toward Germany with the Russian army hot on
their heels. When the Russians entered Germany, they had no problem
with slaughtering any air-breather they ran across in retribution.
What goes around....
1943 President
Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a letter to J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer was the lead scientist on the “Manhattan Project” or
the project to invent a nuclear weapon before the Germans did during
WWII. The military branch of the project was led by Army General
Leslie Groves. It seems that General Groves, being a military man,
was very tense about security on such a secret project as this and
set up the laboratories for the scientist in the middle of a New
Mexico desert near the town of Alamogordo so it could be easily be
made ultra-secret without attracting a lot of attention. The
scientists were not really pleased with the living quarters and the
extra tight security which resulted in friction between Oppenheimer
and Groves. Roosevelt was trying to stroke Oppenheimer so he would
not bolt and run taking the other scientists with him. The letter
succeeded and two years later early one July morning, a bright flash
lingered over the New Mexico desert when a nuclear device known as
Trinity is detonated ushering in the nuclear age whether you liked it
or not.
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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