Saturday, October 17, 2015

American Baseball Imperialism (Revised)

American Baseball Imperialism

Armed American forces have fought have fought in eighty-five out of the 194 countries in the world (excluding the USA itself) or 44 percent of the total.  Over the course of this amazing history, filled as it is with heroic liberations and a few tragic blunders, we Americans have had one undeniable achievement – we have exported the game of baseball around much of the world.
Colosseum, Rome, IT
The Romans built gladiatorial arenas throughout their empire.  The Brits introduced the sports of Rugby and Cricket to the one-quarter of the globe their empire occupied.  The deployment of baseball-loving Americans serving in the US military around the world has spread our national pastime far and wide.   And the spread of American Baseball Imperialism got off to a very early start.

Abner Doubleday, US Army Vet
Abner Doubleday, the legendary “inventor” of Baseball, served in the First Regiment of Artillery in the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American war from 1846 to 1848.  Could this West Point graduate and future Union General in the US Civil war have played some pickup games while in Mexico?

American soldiers have taken baseball with them on campaign to some of the remotest corners of the earth.  In the spring of 1919 the Polar Bear brigade was deployed by President Wilson to Archangel in northern Russia where they also played baseball.

USS Texas vs USS Arizona
Battleship Texas, La Porte, TX

A visitor to the Battleship Texas near Houston will find a poignant reminder of the cost of American Baseball Imperialism.  In a display case there is a baseball, an old glove and a photo from a game played on April 15, 1936 on a Pacific island between the crew members of the Texas and the ill-fated Arizona that was sunk by the Japanese on December 7, 1941.

By the time World War II broke out baseball was firmly ingrained in the national consciousness.  Many famous players such as Stan Musial and Hank Greenberg volunteered to serve their country in the armed services.  Ted Williams, or affectionately known as “Teddy Ballgame” in baseball circles, trained pilots as a Marine aviator in World War II.  Joe DiMaggio, the Yankee Clipper, joined the US Army Air Force in 1943.   His Red Sox brother Dom served in the US Navy.

In Operation Torch, the 1942 invasion of North Africa, American troops would use challenge and countersign: 'Brooklyn?'. 'Dodgers.'  'Brooklyn?' 'Dodgers.'"  Later sentries would bark the password challenge "Three?" and would be answered with the countersign: "Strikes!"

Some of the more fortunate American prisoners of war in German camps even had an opportunity to play some baseball while in captivity.  Who can forget Steve McQueen throwing his baseball against the wall while stuck in the "cooler" in the film The Great Escape?
Band of Brothers play ball!
After the victory against Nazism was finally won, Americans would celebrate by playing baseball in occupied Europe.  In the final moments of Spielberg's miniseries Band of Brothers the paratroopers of Easy Company relax by playing a game of baseball in Zell am See, Austria.  Major Dick Winters, of the 101st Airborne, had ordered the construction of a baseball diamond in this alpine paradise.

Americans even used baseball to exorcise the demons of Nazism in the very belly of the beast -- building a baseball stadium in the Hitler Youth Stadium at Nuremberg.  The site of so many Nazi rallies was transformed into "Soldier's Field" and the European Theatre of Operations (ETO) World Series, featuring many major leaguers in uniform, was held there in September 1945.

Over and over again, countries that have been occupied by American forces have turned into baseball playing countries.  In 1898 soon after Admiral Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay and just weeks after the arrival of American troops, the first baseball was played in the Philippines.  In 1956 Bobby Balcena, of the Cincinnati Redlegs, became the first Filipino to play in the majors.  Today the Filipinos have a league of their own featuring teams such as the Manila Sharks.

Baseball was first introduced to Japan in 1872 by Horace Wilson, an American educator in Tokyo.  The American occupation of Japan which followed World War II helped to vastly spread the popularity of the game.  Ichiro Suzuki initiated a flood of Japanese talent into major league baseball.

Fidel..A Leftie?
Baseball first came to Cuba in the 1860s with the arrival of American sailors making port calls and Cuban college students returning from studies in America.  The young Fidel Castro was a gifted athlete who sought a career in baseball.  In 1949 the lanky Cuban was offered a contract by the New York Giants which he declined.  Just how might Cuban-American relations have differed if Castro had opted to join the show?

Major League baseball is expected to start playing spring training in Cuba in the Spring of 2016.
Donald Lutz
Jackie Robinson famously broke the color barrier in baseball in 1947.  In 2012 Donald Lutz, an outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds, broke another barrier, becoming the first German-developed player to play in the major leagues.  Lutz has an American GI dad and a German mom.  The diamond that Major Dick Winters of Easy Company built in Austria in 1945 is paying off baseball dividends in the 21st century.

How many years will we need to wait before we see an Iraqi outfielder or an Afghan pitcher in the show?  Allah knows that the Mariners could use some help!


Christopher Kelly, the co-author of America Invades: How We’ve Invaded or Been Militarily Involved with Almost Every Country on Earth (www.americainvades.com) and Italy Invades: How Italians Conquered the World (www.italyinvades.com), lives in Seattle and London and is a Mariner fan.

Thanks San Diego Sports Domination...http://sandiegosportsdomination.com/2015/10/12/american-baseball-imperialism-by-christopher-kelly/

Thanks Houston Chronicle...http://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/Baseball-empire-6543803.php?t=7c51fe36c0&cmpid=email-premium

Thanks The Sports Bank...http://www.thesportsbank.net/boston-red-sox/baseball-imperialism-american-history-essay/

Thanks Ottawa Herald...http://www.ottawaherald.com/news/local/commentary-the-rise-of-american-baseball-imperialism/article_8a371fdc-46dc-5157-99ca-f801960f7e17.html

Thanks Star Telegram...http://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/article41244471.html

Thanks North Jersey...http://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-guest-writers/baseball-the-great-global-american-export-1.1442025

You can order your copy of America Invades here...www.americainvades.com
or on Amazon...www.amzn.com/1940598427


Signed copies of An Adventure in 1914 can be purchased here...www.anadventurein1914.com

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Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Fall 2015 Tour Schedule

Italy Invades / America Invades Van
Fall 2015

We are really excited to be launching Italy Invades: How Italians Conquered the World (www.italyinvades.com) this fall.  This is our sequel to America Invades: How We've Invaded or Bee Militarily Involved with Almost Every Country on Earth (www.americainvades.com).  From 10/22 on BOTH books will be available wherever we stop.


Major Jack Coughlin USAF veteran (circa 1969)

I will be out on tour across the USA from 10/15 until 11/22.  Major Jack Coughlin and I  would love to meet you at any of the following venues to answer questions, shake your hand and sign copies of both books.


Italy Invades Wine (Sangiovese & Pinot Grigio)

 We will be adding events to the following as we proceed (to add dates / suggestions please contact Vincent Driano at vdriano1@aol.com). Thanks very much to all of our great venue partners.  Hope to see you on the road!


Venue City, State Timeline Time
Costco  Colorado Springs, CO October 15 1 - 3 PM (AI only)
Eisenhower Presidential Library Abilene, KS October 16

12 PM Noon(AI only)
Beaverdale Books Des Moines, IA October 18
2:00 PM (AI only
Book World Fort Dodge, IA October 19

1:00 PM (AI only)
Book World

Michigan's Military Museum		 Mason City, IA 10/19

Frankenmuth, MI
October 21		 5:00 PM (AI only)

5:00 PM (first signing with II)
Costco (store #1081) Pottstown, PA October 23 1 - 3 PM (AI only)
Walpole Book Fair Walpole, NH October 24 AM (Time TBD)




Symposium Books  Providence, RI 6:00 PM
Bank Square Books Mystic, CT October 27 6:30 PM
Italian-American Museum

Italian American
Heritage Museum		 New York City, NY

Albany,NY		 October 29


October 30
6:30PM


11:00am -2:00pm
Plates Restaurant Raleigh, NC First week of Nov Day / Time TBD
USS New Jersey Camden, NJ November 7 10:00am
Texas Flying Legends Museum Houston, TX November 10 6 - 8 PM 

Battleship USS Texas		 La Porte, TX November 11  Time TBD

River Oaks Bookstore		 Houston, TX November 12 5 - 7 PM 

Texas Military Forces Museum		 Austin, TX November 14  Afternoon  11:00am
Half Price Books Austin, TX November 15 
1 - 3 PM
Battleship USS Iowa Los Angeles, CA November 18  2 - 5 PM


Claremont McKenna College

SS Jeremiah O'Brian		 Claremont, CA


SF, CA		 November 17 / 19?


November 19		 TBD



2 - 5:00 PM


Auntie's Books		 Spokane, WA November 21,  CONFIRMED: 7 PM
Fact & Fiction Book

Magnolia Bookstore		 Missoula, MT

Seattle, WA		 November 22

November 28

CONFIRMED: 2 PM

5 - 8PM
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Monday, October 12, 2015

Two Columbus Myths

Columbus and Queen Isabella
Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA

Our historical view of Christopher Columbus is conditioned by two competing mythologies.

According to the first myth, Columbus was a heroic Italian explorer who sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and discovered America.  His first voyage to the New World was funded by the jewelry of Queen Isabella of Spain.  This bold captain, the first European to reach America, dared to sail off the edge of a world thought to be flat.

Yet this myth is easily busted.

The Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras posited a spherical earth in the sixth century BC—a theory later confirmed by Hellenistic astronomers.  By the eleventh century, the Persian astronomer al-Biruni had calculated a measurement of the earth’s radius that was only 10.4 miles off the accurate modern reckoning of 3,959  miles.  The major challenge faced by Columbus was not the fear of sailing off the edge of the world, but rather the incapacity of ships of his era to travel the entire distance from Europe to China over, presumably, blue ocean. They simply could not contain sufficient fresh water and supplies to provide for the crew.

Columbus’s voyages were not financed by Queen Isabella’s jewels but rather by loans from mainly Italian bankers.  And Leif Erikson, another bold European captain, apparently established a Norse settlement in Newfoundland about five hundred years before Columbus.

Columbus Coit Tower, SF, CA
According to the second, more recent myth, Columbus was a demon of unknown origins and indeterminate age who was consumed by a rapacious lust for gold and love of slavery.  He deliberately launched a genocidal war against the native Americans.  He was a religious fanatic who falsely claimed to have discovered the New World more than ten thousand years after the migration of Asian people across the Bering Strait.

Yet this myth does not really hold up either.

Columbus’s date of birth, or even year of birth (1450 or 1451?), has not been conclusively proven.  Overwhelming evidence, however, suggests that he was the son of Domenico Colombo and his wife Susanna Fontanarossa, who were both from the Republic of Genoa in what is today Italy.  His father worked as a weaver in the wool trade.

Columbus’s diary is filled with references to God and gold; he was Catholic and he sought a tangible return on behalf of his speculative investors.  Columbus was comfortable with religion and the institution of slavery, but no more so than the majority of his contemporaries.

Nina
In 1493, when Columbus returned on his second voyage to the island of Hispaniola where he had left a small garrison, he found that it had been wiped out by the native Taino people.  This skirmish marked the beginning of a long and violent history between European and native peoples in the Americas.  Over the next thirty years, 90 percent of the Taino population would be tragically killed, but they were primarily victims of disease, not a deliberate policy of extermination.  It is absurd to lay the blame for all the subsequent depredations by European settlers on the shoulders of Columbus.

When we strip away these two Columbus myths and try to approach the historic Columbus in the context of his times, we are left with a more complex and more fascinating figure, who was neither an angel nor a demon.  At the end of the day, Christopher Columbus was one of a handful of global historic individuals who changed our world for good, for ill, and forever.

No Columbus = No Chocolate!
To biologists, he is known as the father of the Columbian Exchange.  Both Old and New Worlds were transformed by Columbus’s voyages.  As a result of the Columbian Exchange, Europeans received tomatoes, potatoes, cocoa, tobacco, and boatloads of silver from the New World. Before Columbus, spaghetti Bolognese did not exist and pizza lacked tomato sauce. His voyages led to the eventual introduction of chocolate to the rest of the world.  Imagine a world without chocolate!

Those living in what became known as the Americas received horses, pigs, the lowly earthworm, and Christian missionaries. Lacking immunities, they also received new diseases, such as the smallpox that eventually ravaged the indigenous population of two continents.

Not all exchanges are fair.

It is the historic Columbus that we should remember and even celebrate this Columbus Day.

Happy Columbus Day to all!

Thanks South Coast Today...http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20151004/OPINION/151009801

Thanks Charleston Daily Mail...http://www.wvgazettemail.com/article/20151012/DM04/151019900/1279

Thanks Pueblo Chieftain...http://www.chieftain.com/opinion/3989122-120/columbus-christopher-european-myth

Thanks Herald Dispatch...http://www.herald-dispatch.com/opinion/christopher-kelly-don-t-believe-all-you-ve-heard-about/article_929f8231-07f8-5fc1-b24c-29e8cd3d3ef4.html

Thanks The Ledger...http://www.theledger.com/article/20151012/COLUMNISTS03/151019945/1382/edit?Title=Columbus-Day-Two-myths-debunked-

Thanks Caller Times...http://www.caller.com/opinion/forums/complex-man-sailed-ocean-blue-in-1492-21734c82-b9be-3996-e053-0100007f206e-331832731.html

Thanks THonline...http://www.thonline.com/news/opinion/article_66339f87-c364-538f-ab99-df3809ae8546.html

Thanks Monterey Herald...http://www.montereyherald.com/opinion/20151011/christopher-kelly-columbus-day-two-myths-debunked

Thanks Wisconsin State Journal...http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/opinion/column/guest/christopher-kelly-two-myths-miss-the-real-christopher-columbus/article_ee96fcde-2982-54d6-bcea-bd9e3f5a2c07.html

Thanks Duluth News Tribnue...http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/opinion/national-view/3857578-national-view-columbus-day-two-myths-debunked

Thanks Sauk Valley...http://www.saukvalley.com/2015/10/06/columbus-day-time-to-debunk-competing-myths/a6su1w8/

Thanks times Tribune...http://thetimes-tribune.com/opinion/some-columbus-myths-worthy-of-investigation-1.1955960#

Thanks Taunton Gazette...http://www.tauntongazette.com/article/20151012/OPINION/151005876

Thanks Times and Democrat...http://thetandd.com/news/opinion/editorial/columbus-day-debunking-two-major-myths/article_cbfaddbb-18c9-5af8-ab0b-7bbd0b5706ea.html

Thanks Wicked Local...http://berkley.wickedlocal.com/article/20151012/OPINION/151005876




You can find signed copies of our books at 
these web sites...





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Saturday, October 10, 2015

USA versus South Africa!

Team USA & HMS Victory
Portsmouth, UK
To prepare for the 2015 World Cup the Team USA practiced near Portsmouth which is a major port for the Royal Navy.  A team photograph was taken with the Eagle players standing in front of the HMS Victory -- Nelson's famous ship (http://americanconservativeinlondon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/hms-victory.html).  It seems that, barring a surprise win over Japan, this is the closest that Team USA will get to Victory during this World Cup!

October 7, 2015
Olympic Stadium, London, UK
South Africa and the USA played at the Olympic stadium in east London.  This stadium was initiated at 2012 Olympics when Queen Elizabeth II "parachuted" in for the opening ceremonies.  The Americans were initially holding their own and were only down by 14 to 0 at the half.  The Springboks, however, took control in the second half destroying the Eagles 64 to nil.
Final Score RSA 64 - USA 0
Let's face it, rugby is the national religion of South Africa.  Who can forget the South Africa's historic triumph in the 1995 Rugby World Cup? Its popularity in the USA is growing but it enjoys far less support.
Nelson Mandela
#1 Springbok fan (16th man)
We may not play rugby as well but have Americans ever invaded South Africa?  This is what we had to say on the topic in America Invades...


"For a long time, South Africa was part of the British Empire, and then after it became independent, apartheid policies of successive governments ensured international military isolation, which in turn meant that South Africa developed its own extensive arms industry.
Castle Military Museum
Cape Town, SA
A few hundred Americans did fight on the side of the Boers in the Second Anglo-Boer War. One of them, John A. Hassell, who had served with the Vryheid Commando and been twice wounded, went on to form an entire American volunteer unit. Some Americans also fought on the British side in the Boer War.

 South Africa fought on the same side as us in both world wars, and USN ships have, of course, called in at South African ports. During World War II, as well, Wonderboom Airport at Pretoria in South Africa was the terminus for a US air-ferry route across Africa.
P-51 Mustang, RAF Museum, Hendon
During the Korean War, we supplied the South African Air Force’s 2nd Squadron first with P-51 Mustangs and then with F-86 Sabres, and we gave their pilots conversion training in Japan.
In the years since the collapse of apartheid and the development of South Africa as a full democracy and important African power, a range of military links have been established. For instance, in 2000, three Pave Hawk helicopters operated from Hoedspruit Air Force Base in South Africa, helping with flood relief efforts in next-door Mozambique. In 2009, ships from the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group paid a visit to Cape Town to boost such links. And Shared Accord 2013, a bilateral US military and South African Defense Forces exercise in South Africa, involved more than four thousand troops and included airborne operations, as well as a humanitarian aid project.

 The New York National Guard is partnered with South Africa."

On a recent visit to South Africa I learned of another military connection between Americans and South Africa.  In 1863 during the US Civil war the CSS Alabama was a commerce raiding sloop that resupplied in Cape Town and pursued Yankee merchant ships off the coast of South Africa.  There is even a popular song in South Africa that was inspired by the Alabama Daar kom die Alabama (see video above).

Congratulations and good luck to the Springboks!

RSA v. USA Scrum
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Thursday, October 8, 2015

Was Napoleon Italian?


Napoleon crossing the Alps
The Duke of Wellington, Napoleon's nemesis, famously said, "Being born in a stable does not make one a horse."  Wellington was a phlegmatic Englishman who insisted that being born in Dublin, Ireland in 1769 did not make him an Irish "anchor" baby.

Wellington's maxim applies equally to Napoleon himself who was born the same year on the island of Corsica.  From 1559 right up until the year before Napoleon's birth -- 1768 -- this mountainous island belonged to the Republic of Genoa.  It was then purchased from Genoa and annexed to the kingdom of France.
Napoleon Bust
Grand Curtius Museum, Liege, BE
Napoleon's parents, Carlo Buonaparte and Maria Letizia Ramolino. were both born in Genoese controlled Ajaccio.

They gave him the name "Napoleone Buonaparte" which might be Google translated into "Lion of Naples Good Parts" which hardly sounds French.
San Miniato, Italy
Napoleon boasted of his Italian heritage.  He  said, "I am of the race that founds empires."  He also once said, “I am more Italian or Tuscan than Corsican” (“Io sono Italiano o Toscano, piutosto che Corso”). The ancestral home of the Bonaparte family is in San Miniato in Tuscany.  A visitor to San Miniato will find a piazza Buonaparte and other reminders of the Buonaparte clan.

General Napoleon fought and won many battles on behalf of Revolutionary France in Italy such as Rivoli (1797) and Marengo (1800).  This in itself does not make him Italian any more than winning the battle of Waterloo made Wellington Belgian.

Italian Guard
Musee de L'Armee, Paris, FR
On May 26, 1805 Napoleon was crowned king of Italy with the iron crown of Lombardy inside the cathedral in Milan.  Over 165,000 Italians, representing two percent of their total population, fought for Napoleon’s empire from 1802 to 1815 on battlefields from Madrid to Moscow.  Napoleon had a healthy respect for his Italian soldiers, writing in 1809: “The troops of the Kingdom of Italy covered themselves with glory...since the Romans, no period has been so glorious for Italian arms.”
Bust of Julius Caesar
Arles Archaeological Museum, FR
From his youth Napoleon studied the life and writings of Julius Caesar.  He was a lifelong admirer of Caesar and often emulated the Roman general.  Napoleon adopted the eagle as the rallying symbol for his troops just as the Romans had done centuries before.  You could even say that Napoleon had a bit of a Caesar complex.
Not all invaders are male!
Years after his exile and death on St. Helena Napoleon continued to exert an influence on the Italian peninsula.  In 1859 Napoleon's nephew, Napoleon III, would dispatch a French army to fight on behalf of a unified Italy against the Austrians at battles such as Solferino and Magenta.  Some have suggested that he was prompted by his beautiful Italian mistress, the Countess of Castiglione, who was also Cavour's cousin.
Napoleon passed through Levico Terme in 1796, Trentino, IT
Was Napoleon Italian?  Well, Napoleon, although he adopted and loved France, was Italian in pretty much the same way that the world's most famous Argentine, Pope Francis, is also Italian.


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Friday, October 2, 2015

The Cat and the Stove / Syria and the Middle East

Cat & the Stove

Many years ago I was in a classroom at University where our philosophy professor discussed the problem of the Cat and the Stove to elucidate the concept of induction.

One day a cat walks into the kitchen.  He leaps up onto the stove but his mistress has been brewing a pot of tea and it is very hot.  The cat leaps off of the stove and never goes near it again.

The cat has learned its lesson and will not be burned again.  The cat has induced from his painful experience that stoves mean pain.  But this also means that the cat will never go near the stove again and will miss out on many opportunities to recline on the stove when it is cool and has NOT been in use.  Experience is the name we give to our mistakes.
Destruction of the Temple of Bel
Palmyra, Syria
It occurs to me that the current appalling situation in Syria and the Middle East bears some resemblance to the cat's dilemma.  The Syrian refugee crisis is the worst since World War II and spilling across Europe.  Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in a brutal civil war.   Assad has used chemical weapons against his own people in order to maintain his grip on power. Putin's Russia cynically sells arms to Assad and hopes for a secure port on the Mediterranean.  And Isis has meanwhile metastasized into a major threat to life, liberty and now, with the destruction of Palmyra, even to history itself.  Now they have destroyed the Arch of Palmyra http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34440759).

The West, however, burnt its paws in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and is now unwilling to re-approach that menacing stove.  The idea of taking forceful action against a threat seems to have been repudiated.  We fret the cost of going to war (admittedly great) and NOT about the appalling consequences of our inaction.  We worry that we would simply be perpetuating the cycle of violence in the Middle East.  We have a million excuses for why nothing should be done.  And so we dither and the mayhem continues.
Syrian baby
Syrian lives matter
Those of us on the right are wrong to simply call this a failing of the Obama administration.  It is, much worse than that.  It is, in fact, a failing of the West as a whole.  The entire political spectrum in the West from Hollande's socialist regime in France to Merkel's center / right government in Germany deserves their share of the blame.  But the USA is a Superpower and, by far, world's greatest military power.  We have, by far the greatest capacity for decisive and sustained action.  It has been over four years since the start of the Syrian civil war.  Yet we refuse to act.   The power of Isis grows.  And the suffering and killings continue. A Jordanian pilot is burned to death.  More men are beheaded and more babies drown.  But because we touched the stove in Iraq and Afghanistan we remain paralyzed.  Incapable of decisive action.

Putin offers to take action and he has actually ordered bombing strikes but he is the flawed leader of  a dictatorship / kleptocracy http://americanconservativeinlondon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/open-letter-to-vladimir-putin.html).

We feel powerless and unable to influence matters in any kind of a positive direction.

What should we do?  Are we stuck in a loop, where it is always 1938 and we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again?  What can we do when confronted with the hydra-headed villains of today's middle east?  Does history provide us with any kind of a guide?

I believe that it does.
Winston Churchill
In World War II the Western Allies joined forces with Stalin's Soviet Union in order to defeat Hitler.  Winston Churchill despised Communism but he also said, "If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons."  Churchill did far more than make favorable references to Stalin -- vast quantities of war materiel were shipped to Soviet ports.  The USA provided the Red Army with 13 million pair of winter boots.  Four out of five German soldiers were killed on the Eastern front while the Western Allies bombed the German homeland with round the clock bombing.  America and her allies launched a series of invasions that also proved to be liberations in North Africa, Italy, France, Holland and, finally, Germany itself.  The Nazis were decisively defeated and the process of de-nazification could begin.

At the Tehran conference, "FDR mixed martinis for Churchill and Stalin. FDR asked Stalin how he liked his drink. Stalin answered that it was OK but cold on his stomach."  (Source: America Invades, www.americainvades.com)
www.americainvades.com
Not only did America Invade but, critically, America also remained militarily involved with Europe and remains so to this day.  The NATO alliance was formed.  We, for example, established bases in the Azores to combat the U-boat menace that are still there to this day.  In 2015 Europe, a continent scarred by incessant wars over many centuries, celebrated VE day which marked the 70th anniversary of a general peace on the continent with the exception of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.  Our invasions and our military involvement made an enormous contribution to winning a lasting peace.

It takes more than just invasion and decisive military victory to win a lasting peace.  It requires economic aid (a Marshall plan for the Middle East?) and support for the development of democratic institutions.  It requires sustained political commitment over decades.  Do we in the West have the intestinal fortitude for this?
Spirit of American Youth
Omaha Beach, FR
We remember the toll of invasions.  There were about 10,000 American casualties sustained on a single day on June 6, 1944 (http://www.christianpost.com/news/d-day-remembered-a-historical-perspective-140048/).  Wars are expensive and young men die.  But we must also remember the liberation of the diabolical death camps that followed. We must also remember that the world would have been a much darker place had it not been for those invasions.

We must now join forces with Assad in order to exterminate Isis.  Putin's Russia is already attempting to do so.  We should welcome his efforts.

We Americans are not really powerless; we have the strongest air force and navy in the world.  These can apply devastating pressure on Isis if and only if the political will exists in the West.  US Airpower and Western financial might together with mostly Syrian boots on the ground can crush Isis if they are ordered to do so.
The Big Three of WW2
We in the West must shake hands with this 21st century version of Stalin in order to destroy the 21st century version of Hitler that Isis represents.
Lest we forget
9/11 pool, NYC
And after Isis has been crushed we must remain involved in the middle east.  The painful lesson of 9/11 was that we made a fatal mistake in turning our backs on Afghanistan after the Russians were expelled with our help by the Mujahideen.  Invasion must be succeeded by sustained military involvement just as it was after World War II.  There are about 11,000 American military in Italy in 2015, seventy-two years after we invaded Sicily. The most painful lesson of America's mistake -ridden experience in Iraq has been the rise of Isis that followed our precipitate withdrawal from Iraq in 2011.

Moreover, Putin and Obama need desperately to reach a fundamental understanding.  After Isis has been defeated there needs to be a unwritten gentleman's agreement that Assad, after a decent interval, must go.  He and his family should be offered a secure and comfortable exile.  Perhaps to a mansion on the Black sea?  Anywhere out of Syria.  Forever.

Obama should be mixing a martini for Putin.  But then again I must be dreaming because Putin and Obama don't really get along, do they?

You can purchase your copy of America Invades here...www.americainvades.com
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Thursday, October 1, 2015

Italy's Air Force


Readers may be forgiven for believing that the Italian Air Force is simply a line of clothing created by the rag trade (http://www.aeronauticamilitareofficialstore.it/en/?redirect=1).  In fact, Italians took to the air with the dawn of aviation and Italian military aviation has had a remarkable history.

Just consider the following...

Caproni Ca.20 Monoplane
World's first fighter plane
Museum of Flight, Seattle, WA
The very first bombing raid from a plane was launched  by the Royal Italian Air Force (Reggio Aeronautica) in 1911 in Libya.  And on January 6, 1912 an Italian monoplane bombarded an Arab encampment in Libya with proclamations that fluttered in the sunlight "like so many flakes of toy snow." (Source: The Sleepwalkers, Christopher Clark, www.amzn.com/0061146668).  The world's first fighter plane was also Italian (see photo of Ca.20 above).
Gianni Caproni
Gianni Caproni, though born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was an Italian pioneer in military aviation.  The United States government purchased some of its first bombers from Caproni  (http://americanconservativeinlondon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/caproni-and-dawn-of-military-aviation.html).

American airmen, led by the future mayor of New York Captain Firello LaGuardia, trained on Italian planes in Foggia Italy during World War I.  (Source: Dear Bert, Edward Lewis Davis, www.amzn.com/8887621209).
Italo Balbo
Caproni Museum, Trento
Italo Balbo led a squadron of Italian seaplanes on several transatlantic flights during the 1930s.  He attended the 1933 Chicago World's Fair and Balbo Drive in Chicago is named after him.  (http://americanconservativeinlondon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/italo-balbo-invaded-america.html).


In 1940 the Reggio Aeronautica launched the longest bombing raid in history up to that point in time.  an Italian raid from an airbase on the island of Rhodes attacked oil fields in Saudi Arabia and changed the world forever (see video above and Saudi Arabia chapter of America Invades...www.americainvades.com).

Fiat CR.42
RAF Museum, Hendon, UK
"In September 1940, the Italian Air Corps was sent to Belgium to take part in the Luftwaffe’s Battle of Britain, which was Hitler’s attempt to make an invasion of Britain possible. During October and November of that year, bombers and fighters of the CAI (Corpo Aero Italiano) carried out a number of raids on ports in southeast England, including Harwich, Felixstowe, and Ramsgate. The slow-flying CR.42 biplanes of the Italian Air Force were no match for the RAF’s Hurricanes and Spitfires. A Beaufighter pilot later reported that CR.42s “just disintegrated” when hit."  (Source: Italy Invades: How Italians Conquered the World, Kelly/Laycock, 2015, www.italyinvades.com).
Macchi Fighter
USAF Museum, Dayton, OH
"The Macchi fighters that were deployed after the Battle of Britain were a distinct improvement, though underarmed compared to the German Messerschmitt, the Me 109."   (Source: Italy Invades: How Italians Conquered the World, Kelly/Laycock, 2015, www.italyinvades.com).
Eurofighter Typhoon
In our forthcoming work Italy Invades: How Italians Conquered the World we also note that the Italian Air Force (renamed Aeronautica Militare in 1946) continues to see action in the 21st century.  In the Latvia chapter we wrote, for example, that "in January 2015, Italian Air Force planes took over NATO’s Air Policing mission in the Baltic States. Italian Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets had already visited the region to prepare for the mission."  (Source: Italy Invades: How Italians Conquered the World, Kelly/Laycock, 2015, www.italyinvades.com).


You can now order your copy of Italy Invades: How Italians Conquered the World here...
www.italyinvades.com
or on Amazon.com...www.amzn.com/1940598729


The Ultimate Italy Invades Gift Package is here...
http://store.italyinvades.com/products/italy-invades-gift-package


You can purchase America Invades here...www.americainvades.com
or on Amazon...www.amzn.com/1940598427


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