the punch in the nose

I was listening to a lecture about the Battle Of New Orleans (1814), and the presenter noted that the battle hardened British soldiers looked down on the motley crew of rednecks, Cajuns, Creoles, Blacks ("free men of color" and slaves), Indians, and pirates.

Then the stupid Yanks attacked the British camp.

Dec 23 1814	British occupy Villere plantation - Jackson launches Indian style night attack on British at Lacoste's plantation, British 46 killed, Americans 24 killed - British led to believe American forces are triple the size they really are.

not a big thing, but this presenter said it was similar to the strategy to start a boxing match with a punch to the nose: It probably wouldn't hurt your opponent, but it would keep him off guard and wary of you for the rest of the fight.

Go to 23 minutes in this video about what it means:




Well, President Obama was a good man who wanted to "give peace a chance"..., but perhaps he was a bit naive: his idea was that if America made nice, and stopped being the world's bully policeman, then peace would break out all over the world.

So he told Assad not to use WMD and this was a "red line" warning: but when Assad crossed his red line he did nothing, and this sent a message that America would not retaliate.

But President Obama did try to get rid of the WMD in a peaceful way: he made an agreement that Russia would destroy Assads' WMD.  But of course, the Russians thought he was weak, so they didn't try very hard. And indeed several chlorine attacks were ignored by the MSM and the US.

so why would Assad do something so crazy as use WMD under the new president? Some joke  he might have had a death wish, but I think that he watched CNN and thought that Trump was weakened by all those scandals and wouldn't dare retaliate because he was so unpopular.


Well, Trump just did a punch in the nose, and the world noticed.


my take: yes, it will make "them" hate "us", but they hate us anyway...

and "speak softly and carry a big stick" works a lot better if you know the guy knows how to defend himself.

Assad might have been dazzled by the anti trumpie boy stuff on CNN and even the BBC (whose bias is almost as bad). But he overlooked something:

When the US now has someone named TRex as secretary of state, and someone named "Mad dog" as secretary of defense, it does sort of send a warning: you don't want to make me angry.

one of the results here in the Philippines is that Duterte (aka "the Punisher" or "Duterte Harry", a reference to the movie hero), after making nice with China because he was mad at the US trying to push around the Philippines (and maybe even funding the opposition during the last election), has decided  hmm maybe things have changed... he now plans to get the Philippines to take over some of those unoccupied  islets to show them we might be the mouse in the matter, but we have rights to our own sea areas.

Yes we have the international court behind us, but as I said before: that was meaningless since no one was backing us up.

and yes, Duterte's move also might be partly because China is now "surveying" Benham rise to the EAST of Luzon, presumably to start building an island there in the near future. (which would surround the Philippines and block another shipping route to Japan and Korea).

Maybe Duterte was worried because of all those opinion articles in the Chinese press saying hey we used to own Luzon so why don't we annex it.

But I suspect it is partly because Duterte recognizes that the US might actually back us up if China tries a take over. And of course, we are also starting to get help from Japan .

and talk about press bias: Notice this BBC article on the PI "despute" doesn't mention the international court that ruled in favor of the Philippines?

But now there is a message that maybe if you break international agreements you might be punished with a punch in the nose.

Oh well. To paraphrase the professor in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe:

It's all in Sun Tzu... what do they teach children in school nowadays?