Wars and Rumors of War, 2025. Part 2. The world is not a development opportunity edition.

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

Matthew, Chapter 24.

We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Winston Churchill

Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.

Donald Trump on skipping the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery.

March 2, 2025

Turkey v. Kurds

Following an opening from Turkey's strongman ruler Erdogan, the PKK is suspending armed operations.

US Mexican Border

The US is deploying an additional 3,000 troops to the Mexican border.

March 3, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War

Hegseth Orders Pentagon to Stop Offensive Cyberoperations Against Russia

Absolutely stupid.

US v. Al Qaeda

On Feb. 23, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces conducted a precision airstrike in Northwest Syria, targeting and killing Muhammed Yusuf Ziya Talay, the senior military leader of the terrorist organization Hurras al-Din (HaD), an Al-Qaeda affiliate.

US Central Command.

March 4, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War

The US suspended military aid to Ukraine.  Europe began immediately to fill in and J. D. Vance warned, based on nothing at all, that only Trump could negotiate peace.

More likely, this accelerates the eclipse of the United States.

March 6, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War

The Trump Cabal cut off intelligence access to Ukraine.  Shortly after this, Russia hit Kyiv with ballistic missiles.

Last edition:

Wars and Rumors of War, 2025. Part 1. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

Thursday, February 22, 1945. Waiting.

Drivers of senior officers.  22 February 1945.

Turkey declared war on Germany and Japan.

This may be scoffed at a bit, but Turkey is traditionally an enemy of Russia, and at this point was watching the Soviet Union enter into areas bordering it.  It likely feared a Soviet intervention, and by throwing in with the Allies, albeit late, hoped to avoid that.

Uruguay also declared war on Germany and Japan.

Fighting continued on Iwo Jima.  Most, but not all, of the northern portion of the island was now in the hands of the Marines.

Last edition:

Wednesday, February 21, 1945. Sinking of the Bismark Sea.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, boats and ships, Burma, Iwo Jima, Kamikaze, U.S. Navy

Saturday, February 14, 1925. The Berries.

Kurdish rebels declared Diyarbekir as the capital of Kurdistan.

From the Reading Times, February 14, 1925.

Last edition:

Friday, February 13, 1925. The Sheikh Said Rebellion

 1920s, 1925, Court, Kurds, law, Turkey

Friday, February 13, 1925. The Sheikh Said Rebellion

The Sheikh Said Rebellion by Kurdish nationalists broke out after a sermon by Sheikh Said at Dicle, urging Kurdish independence.

The Judiciary Act of 1925 was passed, seeking to reduce the workload of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Last edition:

Thursday, February 12, 1925. Arbitration and Execution.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Africa, Aircraft, Belgium, Calvin Coolidge, Congo, German Weimar Republic, law, Russian Revolution, Transportation, USSR

Wednesday, December 17, 1924. An election and a promise.

Constantine VI, the Metropolitan of Derkoi, was elected as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

Prior to his election, Turkey had warned that they regarded him as subject to deportation as he was an immigrant to what was now Turkey.

All but one of the owners of the teams in the American League presented a statement to Commissioner Landis that actions would be taken to bring League President Ban Johnson's behavior to heel.  He had been criticizing Landis, but ceased to do so.

Last edition:

Tuesday, December 16, 1924. Looking back.

Labels: 1760s, 1766, 1910s, 1915, 1919, 1920s, 1924, Conservation, Enlightenment, Environmentalism, Hungary, Spain, The Law of Unintended Consequences, The Reformation, World War One

Before people get all giddy about the fall of Assad. . .

 we should keep in mind that, while reprehensible, he was not an Islamist.  

The group that seems to have come out on top. . .for right now, basically is.

And some rebel group is already fighting the Kurds.

Assad was a Baathist, which is to say a fascist.  Fascism is reprehensible, but it is a Western secular idea.  That doesn't make it great, but it also isn't a sectarian Islamic band of jihadist.

Some Syrian rebels are democrats.

Not all by any means.  Some are Sunni jihadists.  Some, Al Queda, are very extreme jihadist.  And in Syria, some are Kurdish nationalist.

We back the Kurds.

The Turks are backing the group that has the Sunni jihadist in it, perhaps because they oppose the Kurds.

Iran was backing the government, as was Russia, which is in no small part why Assad fell.  In its murderous desire to attack Israel, Hamas caused a war that brought Hezbollah in, with both backed by Iran, and they got utterly pounded.

Ukraine has done the pounding on Russia.

So now what?

Well, strong multinational efforts, including frankly a very strong UN peacekeeping force, are in order.  

But of course Donald Trump has already declared for doing nothing.

Doing nothing, is doing something, and that something won't be good for Syria in general, or the Kurds in particular.

Friday, September 12, 1924. Second Assyrian Uprising and National Defense Day.

The complicated  Second Assyrian Uprising, or the Nestorian Rebellion, broke out in southeaster Turkey.  It was the second such uprising by Christian Assyrians who had returned to their homeland and was brought about due to intentional Kurdish misrepresentations about the intentions of the Turks.

Grossly outnumbered by Turkish and Kurdish forces, relying on promises of British intervention which didn't come, and with most of their fighting age men in British service in Iraq, they were defeated, although the British did end the war with the intervention of aircraft, and returned to Iraq.

In the US it was National Defense Day and the National Defense Test, test of the nation's radio system in an emergency took place.

A lot of military demonstrations and events occurred as well.

Casper participated in events.

Businesses stated their patriotism.

Last edition:

Wednesday, September 10, 1924. Eucharistic Congress, St. Mary of the Woods.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Catholic, Christianity, Music

Wednesday, August 14, 1974. Second Turkish invasion of Cyprus.

Turkey invaded Cyprus again, taking 37% of the country, establishing a republic recognized only by it, and dividing the capital Nicosia.

Greece withdrew from NATO"s military command structure as a result of the invasion.  The Greek Cypriot paramilitary group EOKAB took Tochni and by the end of the day had murdered numerous people.

The Greek culture on  Cyprus goes back to antiquity, although the island was never ruled by Greece.  The Turkish presence to 1571 when the Ottomans took the island and began to partially settle it.  The troubles of the 1970s, which have lasted to this day, were started by the Greek nationalist military junta, giving another example of the disastrous effects of Greek overreach in regard to Turkey.

The  East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front (EAAJAF) attempted to assassinate the Emperor Hirohito with a railroad bomb, but was the plot was discovered and disrupted.  The terrorist group was Japanese, in spite of its name, but was in reaction to the Japanese history of aggression, as well as having a far left ideology.

Last edition

Friday, August 9, 1974. President Nixon Resigns.

Labels: 1960s, 1970s, 1974, 2020s, 2024, Blog Mirror, Court, Gerald Ford, Growing up in the 1960s, Growing up in the 1970s, law, Nebraska, Personalities, Richard Nixon, Sic transit Gloria Mundi, Watergate, Wyoming

Monday, August 11, 1924. First sound film of a President.

Lee de Forest filmed Calvin Coolidge on the White House lawn using his experimental Phonofilm sound film process, resulting in the earliest sound film footage of an American president.

The UK and Turkey agreed to submit a territorial dispute over Mosul to the League of Nations.

Anti British riots broke out in Atbarah in Sudan.

Muslim v. Hindu riots broke out in Hyderbad, British India.

Last edition:

Sunday, August 10, 1924. Chinese uprising, Colorado tornado.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Canton Merchant's Corps Uprising, China, Colorado, Republic of China, Weather

Tuesday, August 2, 1944. Murder of the Gypsies.

The last of the gypsies were murdered at Auschwitz.  4,200 people were murdered.

In their memory, this is Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma.

Clearly seeing which way the wind was blowing, Turkey broke off diplomatic relations with Germany.

The Germans launched 316 V-1s on London.  100 reached the city.

Pfc. Joseph A. Calvello of New York City, N.Y., examines the sponge rubber interior of a Russian tire found on a 4.5 cm. anti-tank gun left behind by the retreating Germans in France.

The Allies ceased air strikes on French bridges as the pace of Allied advances increased.

The newly activated 3d Army reached Dinan and the outskirts of Rennes.  The 1st Army captured Villedieu.

The USS Fiske was sunk in the Atlantic by the U-804.  

German midget submarines attacked Allied shipping in the Channel and sank two vessels, including the HMS Quorn.  Of the 58 German Marder submarines used in the attack, only 19 survived.

Fighting continued on Guam, and in Warsaw.

The Arado Ar 234 B Blitz made its first combat flight, a reconnaissance mission over the Allied beachhead in Normandy.

Last edition:

Monday, August 1, 1944. The Warsaw Uprising Starts.

Tuesday, July 30, 1974. Cypriot peace, Articles of impeachment.

Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom signed a peace agreement calling a halt to fighting in Cyprus.  The agreement was mediated by Henry Kissinger.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee adjourned its proceedings for impeachment.  It had passed three articles of impeachment. 

A proposed fourth, asserting, illegal use of power in the 1970 invasion of Cambodia, was rejected.

An election was held in Rhodesia, which had a population of 300,000 whites and 5,700,000 blacks. Voting was segregated. The result was whites took 76% of the seats.

ZZ Top played at the Tulsa State Fairgrounds.

Last edition.

Monday, July 29, 1974. Philadelphia Eleven and Alpha Group.

Labels: 1970s, 1974, Folk Music, KGB, Music, Protestant, religion, trends, USSR, Women

Sunday, July 21, 1974. Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Israeli no, Turkish misidentification.

The day prior, July 20, 1974, the Turks invaded Cyprus in response to the July 15, 1974 move by the Greek military junta ruling the country to annex the island to Greece which had seen a coup take place on the island, replacing Archbishop Makarios III with Greek nationalist 

Greek commandos landed on the island on this day.

The USS Harwood, which later became the TCG Kocatepe.

The Turkish Air Force, in a case of mistaken identification, sank the Turkish destroyer TCG Kocatepe, and heavily damaged the Adatepe and Mareşal Fevzi Çakmak off the coast of Paphos at Cyprus.  The vessels were misidentified as Greek vessels.

The Israeli cabinet voted to turn down a proposal to begin discussions with moderate Palestinian representatives to establish an independent Palestinian nation on the West Bank in exchange for Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist.

Egypt gave exclusive oil and gas prospecting rights in the Gulf of Suez to Standard Oil and the same for the Red Sea to Mobil Oil and Union Oil.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 6, 1974. Live from Lake Wobegon.

Labels: 1970s, 1974, Comedians, Garrison Keillor, Minnesota, Music, Radio, the spoken word

Thursday, July 10, 1924. Before electronics.

The around the world flight of pilots and aircraft from the U.S. Army flew 560 miles from Aleppo, Syria, to Constantinople, Turkey.

I unfortunately have not tracked a lot of the flight, which had gone from Japan, to China, to Indochina, and on into India.

A glimpse into the pre electronic age (although radio was coming on strong), a short story magazine that ran 196 pages in length.  

The first few pages:

Monday, May 19, 1924. Bonuses and Tick Fever.

Congress overrode President Coolidge's veto of the World War Adjusted Compensation Act.

I can't say that act was a big surprise.

An image was transmitted by telephone line for the first time.  Over two hours, 15 photographic images were transmitted by AT&T from Cleveland to New York City.

Korean nationalist tried, but failed, to assassinate Japanese Governor General of Korea Makoto Saito.  The attempt was a clumsy one, involving firing on Saito's boat from the Chinese side of the Yalu.

Dr. Roscoe R. Spencer, after giving himself some time prior his own vaccine for Rocky Mountain Tick Fever, injected himself with "a large does of mashed wood ticks" and did not die, proving that the vaccine worked.

Today it would inspire a bunch of countervailing extreme theories.

Turkey and the United Kingdom failed to reach an accord on the Mosul Question, i.e., who owned the region.

The Royal Australian Air Force completed the first aerial circumnavigation of the continent with a Fairey IIID.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, May 18, 1924. Kīlauea

1920s, 1924, 1924 Olympics, Geology, Hawaii, Olympics, rugby

Easter Sunday, April 20, 1924.

The first public Mass at the Catholic Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C. took.  The Mass was celebrated by Bishop Thomas Joseph Shahan.

Shahan is interred in a crypt as the basilica, the only person to have received internment there to date.

The Turkish Constitution was ratified by the Grand National Assembly.  It established Islam as the official religion and Turkish as the official language.  Ankara was established as the capital.

The Casper Daily Tribune issued an Easter Sunday edition noting the result of the prior day's meeting on a councilman with a liquor charge.

And tourists were being de bugged.

Last prior edition:

Holy Saturday, April 19, 1924.

1920s, 1924, California, Calvin Coolidge, Cartoons, Casper Wyoming, Country & Western Music, Easter, Health, Holy Saturday, Music, Radio, Tourism, Transportation, Wyoming (Casper)

Monday, March 3, 1924. End of the Caliphate.

The Turkish National Assembly ended the Ottoman Caliphate.  It had been in existence for 407 years and claimed religious sovereignty over Islam.  The Assembly also ordered that Abdulmejid II and his harem were to be deported by March 15.  The official deposing of Abdulmejid would come at 2:00 a.m. on March 4.

He did not welcome the news and warned that the ending of the caliphate would cause the rise of extremism in Islam, which his role as the religion's leader of Muslims tempered.  He proved to be correct.  He lived the rest of his life in Europe, at first in Switzerland, and then in Paris, where he died in 1944.  His exile was not an easy one at first, and he was disappointed that Muslims did not demand the restoration of his office.

The Teapot Dome investigation continued.

And the local Piggly Wiggly was robbed.  That location is now a tattoo parlor.

Last prior:

Saturday, March 1, 1924. The Nixon Nitration Works Disaster.

Thursday, March 2, 1944. And the Oscar goes to. . .

Men of the 5th Cavalry Rgt. were landed on Los Negros to back up the previous landings.  Momote Airfield was taken.

Lend Lease aid to Turkey was cut off.  That it was ever extended is interesting, in that Turkey had not joined the war and in fact was still being courted by both sides.

Maj. Graham Batchelor, Milledgeville, Ga., U.S. Army Infantry Liaison Officer, eating with Chinese officers, March 2, 1944.

The 16th Academy Awards were held at Grauman's Chinese Theater, the first time the awards were held in a large public venue. 

Casablanca won Best Picture and Best Director. Other films that were nominated were, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Heaven Can Wait, The Human Comedy, In Which We Serve, The More the Merrier, The Ox-Bow Incident, The Song of Bernadette and Watch on the Rhine.  Of those, I've only seen Casablanca, The Ox-Bow Incident and The Song of Bernadette all of which are truly excellent.

Paul Lukas won best actor for Watch on the Rhine.  Jennifer Jones won best actress for The Song of Bernadette.

Levantines

I've used the term "Coastal Arabs" here recently to describe the culture that stretches from teh Sinai to Turkey and which includes a lot of Syria.

Distribution of Levantine Arab dialect. By A455bcd9 - Own work based on: Levantine Arabic 2022.svgReferences:Brustad, Kristen; Zuniga, Emilie (2019) "Chapter 16: Levantine Arabic" in Huehnergard, John , ed. The Semitic Languages (2nd ed.), Routledge, pp. 403–432 DOI: 10.4324/9780429025563. ISBN: 978-0-415-73195-9. OCLC: 1103311755.Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D. (2022). Jordan and Syria. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. SIL International., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=128220068

It turns out, the word that I should have used is Levantines.

The region has its own dialect of Arabic, its own (really good) cuisine, and those who genetic history from the region can be identified by their DNA.  

Yes, they are Arabs, but they are not Bedouin. 

Sunday, January 6, 1924. Frigid weather and Rebel offensives.

A cold wave was causing grief, and rebels were trying to take the offensive in Mexico.

A story that would repeat many times in Casper was playing out, with oil companies moving their headquarters from Casper to Denver.  By 2000 it had pretty much set in that headquarters were no longer in Wyoming, with Marathon being perhaps the last major producer to relocate.  Denver remains a major oil headquarters city, but Houston has eclipsed it.  Presently, all that really remains of the major petroleum headquarters that were once in Casper are three office buildings, The Ohio Building, the Pan American Building and the Consolidated Royalty Building. 

Atatürk survived a bomb attack on his home by an uninvited visitor which did, however, injury his wife Latife Uşşaki. 

The Catholic Church in France was allowed to reoccupy former Church property under the "diocesan associations" system.

On the same day, the flood of the Seine peaked at over 7 meters.

Monday, December 10, 1923. Mexican rebels and cheese empires advance.

The Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution, which has not been ratified, was first introduced in Congress.

At the time, many suffragettes opposed it out of fear that it would eliminate statutory protection of female laborers, which it likely would have.

Rebels were advancing on Mexico City.

Coolidge was encouraging commercial aviation, and running for reelection.

The National Dairy Products Corporation was founded by a merger of Thomas H. McInerney's Hydrox Corporation and Edward E. Rieck's Rieck—McJunkin Dairy Company. In 1930, it would acquire Kraft-Phenix Cheese Company, and then rebrand itself in 1969 as Kraftco Corporation and then Kraft, Inc.

It is now Kraft Heinz as of this very year.

Kraft cheese is, in my opinion, hideous.

The U.S. Supreme Court held in Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co. that only it, in appropriate Federal questions, could review state supreme court decisions.

The Italian parliament was prorogued, i.e., dissolved, by King Victor Emmanuel III at the request of Benito Mussolini.

Turkey and Albania signed a treat of friendship.