Send In The Troops: Invoke The Insurrection Act

(Tom Cotton's Op-Ed article from The NEW YORK TIMES on 03 June 2020.)

This week, rioters have plunged many American cities into anarchy, recalling the widespread violence of the 1960s.

New York City suffered the worst of the riots Monday night, as Mayor Bill de Blasio stood by while midtown Manhattan descended into lawlessness. Bands of looters roved the streets, smashing and emptying hundreds of businesses. Some even drove exotic cars; the riots were carnivals for the thrill-seeking rich as well as other criminal elements.

Outnumbered police officers, encumbered by feckless politicians, bore the brunt of the violence. In New York state, rioters ran over officers with cars on at least three occasions. In Las Vegas, an officer is in "grave" condition after being shot in the head by a rioter. In St. Louis, four police officers were shot as they attempted to disperse a mob throwing bricks and dumping gasoline; in a separate incident, a 77-year-old retired police captain was shot to death as he tried to stop looters from ransacking a pawnshop. This is "somebody's granddaddy," a bystander screamed at the scene.

Suzuki & Sawamoto: Burma's Founding Fathers (4)

(From Chapter-3 of Joyce Lebra's "Japanese-trained Armies in Southeast Asia.")

On 1 February 1941, the Minami Kikan was brought to life as joint Army-Navy venture, under Colonel Suzuki Keiji. Its chief aim was to cut the Burma route supplying Chunking; an ancillary assignment was to aid Burmese independence.

Army and Navy members met several times during February to discuss plans and tactics. The basic plan was to bring thirty Thakhin Party members out of Burma, train them, supply them with arms and ammunition, and smuggle them back into Burma, where they would instigate anti-British military action. 

Southern Burma would be occupied by guerrilla forces and an independent government would be created. There is some questions as to whether IGHQ approved the last point.

Passports were arranged under false names for Aung San and Hla Myaing, who were provided with false teeth as part of their disguise. Sugii was instructed to arrange with the Daido Steamship Company for smuggling Aung San into Burma by ship and was to accompany him. Sugii was also to take charge of smuggling other members out of Burma and transporting them to their training camp on Hainan Island.

George Floyd Riots: On The verge Of Suburban Civil War

(Hollie McKay's article from The FOX NEWS on 02 June 2020.)

Antifa arrests coming, concerns over riots heading to suburbia, government source says: Agitators behind the rioting that has paralyzed the country over the past week want to move into more suburban areas, a government intelligence source has told Fox News.

Much of the worry stems from the notion that many in well-armed, suburban, and rural neighborhoods won't hesitate to exercise their Second Amendment rights and elevated anxieties could lead to heavy confrontation. "Antifa knows this," said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Local and state authorities have to get a grip on this because if it moves to the suburbs, more people will die."

Several analysts pointed to places that have served as something of "testbed" locations – including Madison, Wis., which was ransacked Saturday night, along with quiet pockets of Charleston, S.C. While it remains murky as to who exactly is behind the ongoing turbulence taking place in dozens of cities nationwide, much of the finger-pointing has been directed toward Antifa, a radical left-wing anti-fascist outfit.

Aung San Letting Japanese Kill Me & My Family?

("Assassination Attempts" from "BREAKTHROUGH IN BURMA" by Dr. Ba Maw in 1968.)

As the situation deteriorated day by day the Japanese drove themselves harder and wanted the Burmese to do the same, and when we could not do it to their extent and in their way they grew morbidly suspicious of us. With every setback their suspicions increased till it made them lose all judgment in their relations with us the Burmese.

They simply could not understand that the only way to win over our people was to demonstrate to them that they were really independent and that their independence was being threatened by the British enemy. Instead, the militarists acted as if we existed only to carry out their orders without questioning.

It created a moral deadlock, for the Burmese felt that if they had to fight the British it would have to be for themselves primarily. Soon both sides were moving in a vicious circle. The more the danger from the enemy (the British Army) drew closer the more stories were spread by the enemy’s secret agents and partisans that many of us in the government were collaborating with the British, and the more these stories were believed by the militarists generally.

Again, the more we tried to rouse the old anti-colonial emotions by making our independence real and visible, the more the militarists were convinced that we were trying to desert them in their defeat. It, created a mental panic among the Japanese which paved the way for the eventual resistance against them. They began to see a secret enemy in every member of the Burmese government who acted independently of them or even asked too many questions, and needless to say I was regarded as the principal enemy agent.

Suzuki & Sawamoto: Burma's Founding Fathers (3)

(Chapter-3 from Joyce Lebra's "Japanese-trained Armies in Southeast Asia.")

Suzuki and all his officers from
Minami-Kikan were Nakano
Spy School graduates. 

In mid-1940 the Navy General Staff knew more about the political and economic situation in Burma than did Army General Staff Headquarters. Kokubu Shozo (a dashing naval reserve officer) had been keeping Navy Headquarters informed on the political situation and economic resources through a series of reports based on several years first-hand acquaintance.

Army general Staff Headquarters, on the other hand, had no such source of information on Burma, but had just sent Suzuki to Burma to learn what he could.

Kokubu's main contacts in the independence movement, by contrast, were with the Aung Than and Ba Sein faction of the Thakhin Party. With them Kokubu had discussed the drafting of a plan for Burma's independence. Kokubu also knew the general situation Burma well and had taken a Foreign Ministry official, Ohashi Chuichi, on a tour of a railway viaduct (Goat-Htate Bridge) on the Burma Road.

For Kokubu's pains he and Ohashi were arrested by British Police who suspected a plot to blow up the bridge. Through Kokubu's friends in both Navy Headquarters and Foreign Ministry he was called to Naval Headquarters and asked for information.

Elon Musk's SpaceX Rocket Sent Astronauts To ISS

(AP's article from The ABC NEWS on 31 May 2020.)

Elon Musk's SpaceX successfully launches rocket carrying astronauts bound for the ISS: NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken lifted off at 3:22pm local time from the same launch pad used to send the Apollo astronauts to the Moon a half-century ago.

"Let's light this candle," Commander Doug Hurley said just before lift-off. Minutes later, they safely entered orbit. Despite more storms in the forecast, the company pressed ahead in its historic attempt to launch astronauts for NASA, a first by a private company.

It's NASA's second go at the launch. The first attempt three days ago was halted due to bad weather. Leading up to the successful launch, forecasters put the odds of success at just 50:50. The flight also ended a nine-year launch drought for NASA, the longest such hiatus in its history.

Ever since it retired the space shuttle in 2011, NASA has relied on Russian spaceships launched from Kazakhstan to take US astronauts to and from the space station. The two men are scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station on Sunday for a stay of up to four months, after which they will return to Earth with a splashdown at sea.

Death Railway? Or Just Thai-Burma Railway

(Extracts from The BREAKTHROUGH IN BURMA by Dr. Ba Maw in 1968.)

Our next Japan-Burma joint undertaking was the construction of the Thai- Burma railway, in which we helped by supplying labour to build the Burma section of it.

This project, and particularly the way some of the labour employed in it was obtained, has become one of the most controversial wartime actions of the Japanese in Southeast Asia, largely as a result of enemy propaganda, which promptly called it the “death railway” because so many labourers, including war prisoners in the hands of the Japanese who were put to work at it, died of sheer hunger, disease, and exhaustion.

For years the British painted it as almost the foulest crime of the war in Asia of a foul-hearted people, the Asian counterpart of the Nazi butcheries in Europe. There is nothing I can say with regard to this charge. I do not know all the facts, but only those relating to the Burmese side of the matter. I will narrate fully what I know.

Suzuki & Sawamoto: Burma's Founding Fathers (2)

(Chapter-3 from Joyce Lebra's"Japanese-trained Armies in Southeast Asia.")

Aung San & Hla Myaing at Suzuki's house in Hamamatsu.

Japan at the outbreak of war in Pacific faced critical problems for which she was ill prepared. Southeast Asia was a newcomer to map maneuvers in the upper echelons of Army General Staff Headquarters in Tokyo, where attention was traditionally focused rather on North China and Soviet Russia.

To counteract the lack of information about Southeast Asia in Tokyo, the Second Bureau of Imperial General Headquarters adopted the expedient of sending young field-grade officers to every nation in Southeast Asia in a series of far-flung intelligence missions. (Suzuki was one of them and he was sent to British Burma in 1940.)

The information fed back from these agencies became the basis for policy decisions made within Imperial General Headquarters. Other ingredients in the wartime decision-making process were the preconceptions of officers in the First Bureau, the powerful Operations Bureau, which overrode the Second Bureau in any confrontation.

Jimmy Lai of Hong Kong: Only Trump Can Save Us

(Based on staff article from The CNN EDITION on 26 May 2020.)

(Media mogul Jimmy Lai; Only Trump can save Hong Kong: Jimmy Lai, founder of Hong Kong's pro-democracy newspaper The Apple Daily, has been a thorn in the side of China's Communist Party for decades. As Beijing moves to enforce the controversial Hong Kong national security law, Lai is pleading with the US President Trump for help.)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Reacting to China’s plans for a Hong Kong national security law, outspoken media tycoon Jimmy Lai tweeted Saturday (May 23) that he would fight to the end for his home.

The announcement at the National People’s Congress that China is planning a security law for Hong Kong sparked criticisms that it would be a violation of the “one country, two systems” formula introduced in 1997 and meant to last for 50 years. Following the harsh police crackdowns on protests against a planned extradition law, Hong Kong democracy activists view the plan as renewed repression.

Lai, who is the founder of Next Magazine and Apple Daily, tweeted his response to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) measures Saturday. “Under CCP’s clampdown HK people have 2 choices: immigrate or stay to fight to the end. I’ll fight to the end. HK is my home. We are not frightened,” he wrote on his new English-language Twitter account.