Translation: President Trump Is A Raving Lunatic

Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee is a courtly Southern gentleman of the old school. He speaks clearly, but with constraint. So when he says something, it sometimes needs to be translated.

Today in Chattanooga, Senator Corker observed of Trump: "The President has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful," Later in the day he observed: "We should hope that (Trump) aspires that he does some self-reflection, that he does what is necessary to demonstrate stability, to demonstrate competence, to demonstrate that he understands the character of our nation and works daily to bring out the best of the people in our nation."

I grew up in the South and am fairly good at translation. What he says means: "Donald J. Trump is a raving lunatic."

For what it's worth.

Let's Be Clear: We Don't Need Statues Glorifying Traitors

Charlottesville's decision to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee was not because he owned slaves - it was because he committed treason against the United States.

Moreover, he knew he was committing treason. As did Jefferson Davis, General Beauregard, J.E.B. Stewart and many others memorialized by statuary.

Remember: we have no statue of Benedict Arnold.

By the way, some of my ancestors owned slaves and some fought for the Confederacy. There are no statues to them nor would I want any.

Treason

Just a reminder:

Article 3 - The Judicial Branch
Section 3 - Treason

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

Points to remember:

Robert E. Lee committed treason.

Jefferson Davis committed treason.

Many others committed treason, including some of my ancestors.

The elected officials and commissioned officers knew at the time they were committing treason.

Soldiers drafted by the Confederacy had no choice. Their leaders did have a choice.

It is time to remove statues glorifying traitors.

Our best known traitor of the American Revolution, Benedict Arnold, has no statue in his honor despite his important victory at Saratoga. General Arnold was wounded in the foot in the battle. 

There is a statue at Saratoga of Benedict Arnold's boot, though it does not identify him.

Maybe that's a good precedent. We can put up statues to Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis in Mexico.

Locked And Loaded - Give Me a Break!

Donald J Trump's latest bluster was the boastful phrase: Lock and Load!

It turns out that is a phrase used by actor John Wayne (born Marion Robert Morrison) in the movie Sands of Iwo Jima.

No wonder Donald Trump borrows phrases from John Wayne. Neither of them ever wore their country's uniform for real. They use bluster to conceal that reality.

Like Wayne, Trump is playing a role. He isn't as good at it, and unlike Wayne, Trump can really cause people to die. Americans can die. Unnecessarily.

John Wayne was a chicken hawk. So is Donald Trump.

Trump is also a man without honor.

Now he wants us to go to war with Venezuela? What is that about?

United States And Korea

In 1949 a classmate in a country grade school in Oklahoma told us he had joined the National Guard.

He was big for his age - he had just turned fifteen, and could easily pass for eighteen. Like many farm boys, he was a good rifle shot and was at home around firearms. The big attraction was that they paid him for going to drills. It was a really good deal - good enough to lie about his age.

The down side came the following summer when the North Korean army attacked across the 38th parallel into South Korea. Oklahoma's "Fighting Forty-Fifth" was the first National Guard unit called up to be sent to Korea.

The young man's parents lost no time letting the National Guard know he was under age.

Like others of my generation, I spent my high school years in the shadow of Korea. Graduates were drafted right away and sent off to war. Even after the armistice of 1953, we knew if war was not to be in Korea, it would likely be in some other place.

It would be war or rumors of war for the foreseeable future.

I prepared for war by entering the Naval ROTC.

America's first conflict in Korea took place in 1871. Korea did not welcome foreign merchant ships and treated shipwrecked sailors harshly. Their treatment of American sailors led to a punitive expedition.

We sent a naval force and put marines ashore. A force commanded by Commander Winfield Scott Schley, later a hero in  the Spanish American War.

We have missed many opportunities to negotiate a permanent settlement to Korea, but it always takes longer than we have before another election.

A key misstep in my view was the decision in 1956 to introduce nuclear weapons into the Korean peninsula. We are reaping the results of that decision now. North Korea's response was a combination of belligerence and passive countermeasures. Most significantly, they dug reinforced caves which eventually served as protected sites for their nuclear development programs.

The Honest John nuclear missiles and the nuclear howitzers that we installed in Korea had very limited capabilities and were obsolete very soon. They were removed by President Bush long after they ceased to be of any use.

But the hardened enclosures remain an enormous obstacle to preemptive attack.

Another case of "be careful what you wish for, lest you get it."

Now we need some thinking adults in charge of strategy, including diplomatic strategy.

John McCain - Man Of Courage

I never met John McCain. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1958; I graduated from NROTC in 1958, which puts us in the same year group, with the same date of rank.

He flew airplanes; I drove ships (destroyers and cruisers). In the 1980's I served in the Pentagon in Plans and Policy - he served in Congressional Relations.

So our paths never crossed.

I often disagreed with him.

But I never doubted his courage or his integrity.

He has more strength and courage in his little toe than Donald J. Trump has in his whole body.

Democracy And Rule Of Law

Democracy is more than just elections.

The Soviet Union had elections.

Joseph Stalin usually received 98 or 99% of the vote.

The Soviet Union didn't have rule of law. The fictonal Ivan Denisovich was sentenced to ten years in a labor camp for suspicion of an offence. Actual Soviet citizens were sentenced for making jokes about Stalin.

Soviet citizens, like those of Tsarist Russia before them, lived in mortal fear of even minor bureaucrats.

One of my favorite stories by Anton Chekhov is titled "Death Of A Bureaucrat." It describes the terror faced by a minor official who accidentally sneezes on a senior civil service official, keeps apologizing obsequiously and fears the senior official does not excuse him. He goes home to bed, turns his face to the wall and dies of mortification.

When our soldiers came home from World War II, they were determined to prevent our country from going down that path. We might not have been a perfect democracy in 1941 or yet in 1945, but we aspired to be as perfect as we could be and to continue perfecting that state.

What defends us from autocracy is democracy and the rule of law. Not just a casual regard for laws, but a deep respect for law.

Five years ago, our elected officials in the Town of Oriental turned away from rule of law and toward arbitrary exercise of authority in favor of the wishes of the wealthy and the powerful.

When elected officials in a democracy abandon rule of law in favor of influence or some other value, that is a betrayal of democracy and of its citizens.

Last Friday's meeting of the Oriental Planning Board was an attempt to address the consequences of a five year old betrayal.

More to follow.

Navy At Fault in Fitzgerald Collision

According to YAHOO News, preliminary investigation shows the Navy is at fault in the collision of USS Fitzgerald with a Philippine Container Ship.

Here is one published report:

"What caused the bizarre June 17 collision between a U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer and a Philippines cargo ship that killed seven U.S. sailors off the coast of Japan?

It looks like some answers may finally be forthcoming.

An initial investigation has found that the USS Fitzgerald’s crew did not respond adequately to signals, did not understand that the other ship was drawing near, and may have failed even to summon the commanding officer, according to CNN.

“They did nothing until the last second,” said one defense official.

“There were many people who should have spoken up,” another official told Fox News.

The far larger cargo ship hit the Fitzgerald on its starboard side at 1:30 am after veering sharply in a failed attempt to avoid it, gouging out a deep gash that left the Navy destroyer listing to one side. After the deadly collision, the Fitzgerald was towed to the U.S. naval base at Yokosuka. Three Navy sailors, including the commanding officer, were evacuated to medical facilities in Japan. Divers salvaged the bodies of seven American sailors.

It was the deadliest U.S. naval event since the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000.

Multiple investigations have been launched to figure out how a radar-equipped, sophisticated vessel like the Fitzgerald was apparently unable to avoid a much larger ship.

International navigation guidelines state that “the vessel which has the other on her own starboard side shall keep out of the way.”

A Navy spokeswoman warned that no conclusions should yet be drawn from the initial probe.

“We are in the early stages of the investigation process to develop a comprehensive picture of what caused the collision and do not have any definitive information to release at this time,” Rear Adm. Dawn Cutler, U.S. Navy Chief of Information, said in a statement.

“It is premature to speculate on causation or any other issues,” said Cutler. “Once we have a detailed understanding of the facts and circumstances, we will share those findings with the Fitzgerald families, our Congressional oversight committees and the general public.”

This is not a surprise.

I still want to know exactly how it came about. I now have enough information from this news report to make a guess. 

My guess is that the Officer of The Deck that night may not have been looking out the window. He should have been. USS Fitzgerald was equipped with the latest, most automated radar, the AN/SPY-1D radar. It should have automatically established radar tracks for ships and aircraft in the ship's vicinity. But the scale of the display may not have been right for nearby surface ships. 

In any event, no matter how automated the ship's sensors may be, the Mark I Mod 0 eyeball (otherwise known as seaman's eye) is still necessary for safe operation of ships at sea.

That's why I want to know more about what happened that night.

In any event, one thing is certain: one person is responsible for the safe operation of the ship - the Captain. Others may also be responsible, but there is no doubt about the Captain.