Military Veterans and Patriots

Tag: Civil War

  • Trouble in Syria

    Trouble in Syria

    After a few years of relative peace, civil war has erupted in Syria again. Turkish-backed rebel groups seem to have started attacking Assad regime security forces and the Syria Arab Army – a Syrian regime-backed Arab militia – Thursday. The offensive seems to have come as a surprise and has moved very rapidly.

    As of this writing – 1400 EDT 30 November – the rebels have managed to take Idlib, Aleppo and several other smaller towns in the northwestern part of the country. They have moved south and east with surprising rapidity and are reported to be on the outskirts of Hamah in the northwest, Homs in the central part of the country and Daraa in the south.

    There are also reports of an attempted coup in Damascus. Details there are a bit sketchy, with little reliable intel making its way out, but here’s what I’ve seen: the Republican Guards seem to have initiated the coup attempt and are directly engaged with the SAA and other regime troops in and around Damascus.

    Bashar al Assad is in Russia on a pre-planned trip to beg Putin for more. Speaking of the Russians, they have a few bases in Syria. The two most important are the airbase at Latakia and the Navy facility at Tartus. Once the rebels get within ~30km of either of those bases, the Russians will be forced to evacuate.

    Why 30km? That’s the range of the 122mm rockets the rebels have captured from regime forces. They have also captured more than a dozen tanks, several artillery pieces, a bunch of APCs and tons of small arms and ammo.

    And why will the Russians be forced to evacuate? Because the Rebels remember the way they indiscriminately bombed Idlib and Aleppo.

    I have to admit I’m more than a bit ambivalent about this war, at least in regards to who wins. There are really no good options on the table. The rebel groups, with the possible exception of the Kurdish YPG/J in the northeast, are all Islamist.

    The largest of the groups, Hayat tahrir al sham, is an offshoot of al Qaida, (or was, there’s evidence that the current Emir, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, has disavowed affiliation with al Qaida’s leadership), is the one making the biggest gains.

    We all know about Assad’s record, so I feel disinclined to rehash it here.

    That said, this is overall a good thing for the world at large. Russia loses influence in the region, Iran loses a proxy state and a transshipment point for illicit arms and Assad loses his head. My concern is what rebel group comes out on top, as they will shape the region for decades to come.

  • Four Score and Seven Years Ago

    Four Score and Seven Years Ago

    Those words, some of the most famous in US history, were the beginning of Abraham Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg. The speech was given at the dedication of the Soldiers National Cemetery (now known as Gettysburg National Cemetery) on 19 November, just four and a half months after the battle of Gettysburg.

    One of two confirmed photographs of Lincoln at the Gettysburg consecration ceremony. It was taken by photographer David Bachrach.

    The speech only lasted two minutes and was only 272 words long, at least in the most widely accepted version. There are at least five versions of the Gettysburg address, all differing slightly, but the ‘Bliss’ copy, is the one considered the official text of the speech.

    Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

    Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

    But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

    Abraham Lincoln
    November 19, 1863

    The words “under God” do not appear in the Nicolay and Hay drafts but are included in the three later copies (Everett, Bancroft, and Bliss). Accordingly, some skeptics maintain that Lincoln did not utter the words “under God” at Gettysburg. However, at least three reporters telegraphed the text of Lincoln’s speech on the day the Address was given with the words “under God” included. Historian William E. Barton argues that “Every stenographic report, good, bad and indifferent, says ‘that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom.’ There was no common source from which all the reporters could have obtained those words but from Lincoln’s own lips at the time of delivery.”

    Contemporary reaction to the speech was divided. Some felt it was one of the Great Speeches, others were less impressed. I feel it’s my duty to point out that most, if not all, those who disliked the speech were partisan Democrats.