today’s events definitely add a level of caution.

I went to Istanbul at Christmas. After I left there was a bombing near where I was staying. While I was there, I had zero problems. However, my wife, daughters and I walked through a very conservative Muslim neighborhood. The local mosque had been taken over by a hard core sharia type sect. As my family walked down the street, men catcalled at them. Women walked around in full burka and averted their eyes when close. We went to an operating eastern orthodox christian church surrounded by barbed wire. We went into it like a person would have gone into a speakeasy in the 1930s. Our guide said that there would probably be no way to come through this neighborhood as a westerner soon.

Istanbul is incredibly interesting, but Erdogan and hard line totalitarian muslims are starting to gain influence in the city. Fortunately, the last election there provided a little pushback.

If I were Jewish, I don’t think I’d visit Turkey (or maybe even Paris)

.
The binary solution of “go” v “no go” always provides the greatest safety when it lands on “no go”.

BRC
http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com

I can believe that.

But there are some people in
that part of the world who
really do not like Americans.

Let’s see: How about a Google
search

Caucasus ISIS

which gives:

ISIS Declares
Governorate in Russia’s North
Caucasus Region

The announcement pits ISIS
against the Islamic Emirate of
the Caucasus, …

http://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/isis-declares-governorate-russia%E2%80%99s-north-caucasus-region

Isis in Russia: Chechen jihadi
group pledges allegiance to
Islamic State

IBTimes UK

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-europe-chechen-jihadi-group-pledges-allegiance-islamic-state-1507439

Also from Google search

ISIS Turkey Syria

can see

A Path to ISIS,
Through a Porous Turkish Border

By TIM ARANGO and ERIC
SCHMITTMARCH 9, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/world/europe/despite-crackdown-path-to-join-isis-often-winds-through-porous-turkish-border.html?_r=0

ISIS doesn’t like the US. ISIS
likes to kill, behead, blow up,
torture, shoot, people they
don’t like.

Sure, in Gulf War I, the US had
one of the greatest, most
one-sided, astounding military
victories of all time, e.g., as
in the mother of all news
conferences by General H.
Norman Schwartzkopf as at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKi3NwLFkX4

From Gulf War I, Saudi Arabia
definitely should look at the US
as their great, dearly loved,
father figure. Absolutely,
positively.

Still, on 9/11/2001 several
suicidal Saudi citizens made the
worst terrorist attack on the US
ever and one of the worst
terrorist attacks ever.

Net, for that part of the world,
i.e., that side of the Bosporus,
North Africa through the Arab
countries, into Iran, India,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, to the
Caucasus, etc., there are a lot
of people who really don’t like
Americans.

Heck, if not for the US, Iran
would be run by Germany now,
from the German forces near
Stalingrad moving south through
the Caucasus and Rommel from
North Africa moving north.

Still, this week, the parliament
or whatever in Iran shouted
“Death to America”.

When and if it becomes in the
interest of the US, I’m not
afraid to have the US fight ISIS
— Schwartzkopf showed us how,
and we can do better now. The
ISIS military is something out
of Lawrence of Arabia,
complete with the camels.

Susan, just a little background:

(1) The first part of a war is
the air war. The side that wins
the air war stands to win the
whole war.

E.g., in WWII one of the reasons
the Allies went so quickly from
the landing in Normandy, June 6,
1944, to the break out from the
Normandy hedgerow country, the
Falaise Pocket, August 8–17,
1944, Paris, August 25, 1944,
and the Battle of the Bulge,
December 16, 1944, was that the
Allies had totally won the air
war. One of the more important
airplanes involved was the P-47
Thunderbolt,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_P-47_Thunderbolt

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Republic_P-47N_Thunderbolt_in_flight.jpg

with eight 50 caliber machine
guns, could make a big mess out
of nearly anything — soldiers,
cars, trucks, buildings, trains
— on the ground in a big hurry.

For ISIS, they don’t have an air
force; so, we’ve already won
that air war.

(2) A big point in winning an
air war and, really, the rest of
a war, is just seeing where
things are. Well, for that we
have satellites, surveillance
aircraft, and, now, drones. We
can see with visible light,
infrared, and radar, and the
last two can see through smoke,
rain, and dust, and the last can
see fine at night, through
clouds, etc.

(3) Another big point in winning
a war is to know just where the
heck things are. For that we
have the USAF Global Positioning
System (GPS — also in
smartphones) that can locate
within an inch or so in each of
the three dimensions.

(4) Another big point is, once
we have won the air war, located
the enemy, and know just where
they are, put a weapon right
there. We can do that, e.g.,
through the lower half of the
fourth window from the SE
corner, on the south side, on
the second floor, at night.

However, maybe the target is in
a hardened bunker,
covered by, say, reinforced
concrete 200 feet thick. No
problem: We have a bomb that
will cut through the 200 feet in
one stroke and destroy what’s
inside.

(5) For more, the USAF has a
really ugly single seat airplane
the A-10

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A-10_Thunderbolt_II_In-flight-2.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/A-10_Thunderbolt_II_In-flight-2.jpg

with a long, detailed review at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTesoaXFaEo

At times GE has had some really
good engineers; basically the
Pentagon went to GE and asked
for a gun that would destroy
cars, trucks, buildings, and
tanks; and GE got a grade of A+:

Each bullet is 30 mm in
diameter, that is, about 1 1/4″.
The effectiveness of a bullet is
essentially from its momentum,
and from physics that’s mass
times velocity. So, want more
mass; so, want more density; so,
want a dense bullet, not iron,
not lead, but, right, uranium.
Cuts right through tank armor.
An A-10 makes little pieces out
of big tanks in a big hurry.

In Gulf War I, the A-10s
destroyed just short of 1000
tanks, about half of all the
Allies destroyed.

Near the end of Gulf War I, a
lot of Iraqis were on a road
from Kuwait City back to Iraq in
cars, trucks, whatever, with
whatever loot they found, etc.
Well, one or more A-10s saw the
long traffic jam and took one or
a few passes. The result was
instant, total devastation,
little pieces and big fires
everywhere, so bloody that, as I
recall, just for PR Bush 41 said
don’t do that anymore.

Supposedly the USAF says that
the A-10 is obsolete and has
more effective means — they may
be correct. But against ISIS,
the A-10 would be instant death
for any target that could be
identified.

And, at least for fixed targets,
we don’t have to put a US
soldier in harm’s way: Instead,
drones, etc. can report GPS
coordinates, and a cruise
missile from, say, a US ship in
the Mediterranean, can deliver a
weapon to the coordinates.

Net, if the US wants to fight
ISIS, then as soon as ISIS has
anything, fixed or moving,
building, truck, etc., the US
can reduce it to tiny, little
pieces right away. Even easier
for dedicated ISIS soldiers,
even ones in black ski masks.

If the US needs to fight ISIS,
then I’m not afraid.

Still, no way will you find
private citizen me walking
around in that area unless (A)
the area is very peaceful, (B) I
am fully anonymous, and (C) I’m
not there often enough to lose
my anonymity. I want to keep my
head.

Simple, powerful solution —
just stay away.

I have several friends who have visited Istanbul in recent years. All of them indicated it was a fascinating and friendly city.

My mother was from Columbus, OH, and my
father, from a little south of Buffalo,
NY. Since the US Navy had Dad near
Millington, TN, I grew up in Memphis.
They were still fighting the Civil War,
and I didn’t like that and, thus, was glad
to get out’a there ASAP and happy to be in
NYS in the country 70 miles north of Wall
Street — happy. Much happier when my
business works.

There is a current news report that one
path into ISIS in Syria, and, thus, also
Iraq, is via Turkey. Net, there are
plenty of people in Turkey who really do
not like Americans.

So, I was terrified to hear that Fred and
GG went to Istanbul and glad they got to
Vienna, the land of Mozart,
schmaltz, Schlagobers,
whipped cream and a Richard Strauss
ballet, coffee, chocolate, Fritz Kreisler,
Johann Strauss, the total sweetheart
Deanna Durbin movie Spring Parade
(1940)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT32OjDYX5Q

about a peasant girl, good at singing,
with a goat who goes to Vienna, etc.

I can agree that Charleston is a nice
place, but some places it’s best to be
away from. Just declining to be there
solves a lot of potential problems right
away.

The Boss has spent over a decade with business interests in Charleston. That entailed a lot of visits to this charming and delightful city. It is a great city with superb food, great architecture, the water surrounding it and Southern hospitality.

http://themusingsofthebigredcar.com/charleston-look-to-charleston/

It is heartbreaking to learn of the horrific racist atrocity committed in this beautiful city.

It is uplifting to see the reaction of Charlestonians to this crime.

Show the world, Charleston. Show the world by your example.

God bless Charleston. Pray for Charleston.

BRC

http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com