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JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Monica Crowley, Washington Times and Fox News
 
SPONSORED BY SCALA.COM
Hour One
Monday 11 March 2019  /Hour 1, Block A:  John Batchelor, and Monica Crowley, Washington Times senior columnist and Fox News, in re: Report from Gosar in the Caucasus Mountains on the Azerbaijan side of the patrolled Dagestan Russia border. At present we’re on a snow-capped mountain.  In spring 1918, Armenian gangsters posing as Bolsheviks mass-murdered locals, buried them in mass graves so deeply that it was only in 2007 that a farmer ploughing discovered the remains.  Sovietskii buildings: low, squat, ugly.  All crumbling. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan is swiftly bringing itself into the Twenty-first Century; a rich lesson for Americans today, as socialism is well known here to bring want and misery.
Monday 11 March 2019  /Hour 1, Block B:  Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal and FDD; and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD; in re: US says it’s negotiating with the Taliban; no one has notified ISIS that the fighting is over.  . . . Pakistan is a state sponsor of terrorist groups.  Hamza bin Ladin, ObL’s son, is being groomed to take over.
Monday 11 March 2019  /Hour 1, Block C:  Gordon Chang, Daily Beast, in re: US -China trade talks.  Azerbaijan was plundered by the Soviets for its energy resources.  WSJ reports that Washington has explained the Germany that if it accepts Huawei 5G technology, which obviously will allow (cause) China to take possession of all data that passes over the 5G, and thereby vacuum up NATO secrets, then the US will no longer be able to share intell with Germany. If Berlin pursues its purblind path, that will be the fracturing of NATO.
Monday 11 March 2019  /Hour 1, Block D:  Andrew C McCarthy, Esq, in re: Paul Manafort’s fate. Irony in the fact that the Mueller probe: never alleged that Manafort was an agent of Russia as he obviously was working only with Ukraine, not with Russia.  . . . Devin Nunes points us to transcripts to be made public this coming Thursday.
 
 
Hour Two
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Monday 11 March 2019  /Hour 2, Block A: John Batchelor, and Monica Crowley, Washington Times senior columnist and Fox News, in re: Report from Gosar in the Caucasus Mountains on the Azerbaijan side of the patrolled Dagestan Russia border.   Visiting Quba yesterday, impressed by the farmers.  After so many decades under the jackboot of the Soviet empire the country is rapidly transforming itself, with the energy sector and agriculture.  Large, fertile lands under cultivation.
In spring 1918, Armenian gangsters posing as Bolsheviks mass-murdered locals, buried them in mass graves so deeply that it was only in 2007 that a farmer ploughing discovered the remains. Now they have photographs of the skulls of men, women and children; Muslims, Christians and Jews.
The injustices of the Twentieth Century, if not resolved, will carry forward to today and tomorrow.
Monday 11 March 2019  /Hour 2, Block B:  Gregory Copley, editor & publisher, Defense & Foreign Affairs; ISSA; in re: Azerbaijan as the wheel hub of the New Silk Road.  Armenia’s troubles with the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.  Azerbaijan, under Pres Heydar Aliyev and now under his son, has maneuvered most skillfully among its neighbors. Turkey depends on shipment of O&G from Baku.  Azerbaijan does not depend on China for its prosperity.  It must tread delicately in its region; two-thirds of the Azeri population lives in Iran.
Monday 11 March 2019  /Hour 2, Block C:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: The ancient Orthodox Jewish-community of Quba, “The Red Village,” a 300-year-old success where the present mayor is Jewish, and Muslims and Jews live in harmony, are happily friends and neighbors. Two synagogues; goes back maybe 1,500 years, with Talmudic references to “the Mountain Jews.”  Carpet weaving. Hajji Naim Egypt, Hamas, Hezbollah. Trump peace plan. Haji Naib Sattarov and Pesach Issakoff.  . . . No fear of walking with a skullcap in Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan.
Monday 11 March 2019 / Hour 2, Block D: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: Iran sentences female human-right lawyer to multiple lashes.  Unemployment, drought.
 
Hour Three
Monday 11 March 2019 / Hour 3, Block A:   Michael Vlahos. Johns Hopkins, in re:  Victor Davis Hanson’s The Case for Trump.  The American ruling class professes to by unable to see how an uncouth non-member could achieve highest office – and have been elected by the people. For decades, they watched jobs go to China and overseas to the benefit of Washington, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and “the great blue cities.’’  They called the voters “despicables.” Reminiscent of the KGB just before the end of the USSR. 
Monday 11 March 2019 / Hour 3, Block B:   Michael Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re: :  Victor Davis Hanson’s The Case for Trump.
Monday 11 March 2019 / Hour 3, Block C:  Richard Fontaine, president of The Center for a New American Security (CNAS), in re:  North Korean deal under Bush 1; which did not work. Moon Jae-in’s prof9und desire for reunification, irrespective of the costs to democracy. Most South Koreans see the North as a very different country and do not want swift reunification.
 
Monday 11 March 2019 / Hour 3, Block D:   Hotel Mars, episode n; Bill Harwood,  senior space consultant for CBS News, and David Livingston, The Space Show, in re:  Soft capture: when the spacecraft comes in to the docking mechanism, engage slowly and gently. Berthing mechanism. SpaceX. . . .   ISS: Russians provide propulsion; US provides gyroscopes to keep the thing stable.
 
Hour Four
Monday 11 March 2019 / Hour 4, Block A:  From Kabul to Baghdad and Back: The U.S. at War in Afghanistan and Iraq, by John R. Ballard , David W. Lamm, et al. (1 of 4)
From Kabul to Baghdad and Back provides insight into the key strategic decisions of the Afghan and Iraq campaigns as the United States attempted to wage both simultaneously against al-Qaeda and its supporting affiliates. It also evaluates the strategic execution of those military campaigns to identify how well the two operations were conducted in light of their political objectives. The book identifies the elements that made the 2001 military operation to oust the Taliban successful, then with combat operations in Iraq as a standard of comparison, the authors analyze the remainder of the Afghan campaign and the essential problems that plagued that effort, from the decision to go to war with Iraq in 2002, through the ill-fated transition to NATO lead in Afghanistan in 2006, the dismissal of Generals McKiernan and McChrystal, the eventual decision by President Obama to make the Afghan campaign the main effort in the war on extremism, and the final development of drawdown plans following the end of the war in Iraq. No other book successfully compares and contrasts the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan from a national strategic perspective, analyzing the impact of fighting the Iraq War on the success of the United States campaign in Afghanistan. It is also the first book to specifically question several key operational decisions in Afghanistan including: the decision to give NATO the lead in Afghanistan, the decisions to fire Generals McKiernan and McChrystal and the decision to conduct an Iraq War-style surge in Afghanistan. It also compares the Afghan campaigns fought by the Soviet Union and the United States, the counterinsurgency campaigns styles in Iraq and Afghanistan and the leadership of senior American officials in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In the final chapter, the key lessons of the two campaigns are outlined, including the importance of effective strategic decision-making, the utility of population focused counterinsurgency practices, the challenges of building partner capacity during combat, and the mindset required to prosecute modern war.
Monday 11 March 2019 / Hour 4, Block B:   From Kabul to Baghdad and Back: The U.S. at War in Afghanistan and Iraq, by John R. Ballard , David W. Lamm, et al. (2 of 4)
Monday 11 March 2019 / Hour 4, Block C:  From Kabul to Baghdad and Back: The U.S. at War in Afghanistan and Iraq, by John R. Ballard , David W. Lamm, et al. (3 of 4)
Monday 11 March 2019 / Hour 4, Block D:  From Kabul to Baghdad and Back: The U.S. at War in Afghanistan and Iraq, by John R. Ballard , David W. Lamm, et al. (4 of 4)
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