Was The Japanese Destroyer Captain At The Battle of Midway Who Drowned Two Captured US Airmen Tried As A War Crinal?

Was the Japanese destroyer captain at the Battle of Midway who drowned the two captured US airmen later tried as a war criminal?

Roger Koshiyama

Answered Aug 26 · Upvoted by Eric Johnson, 25 years working in and around USAF F-16s

The officer in command of the destroyer Makigumo was then Cmdr Isamu Fujita - a graduate of Etajima Class 50 - June 1, 1922. He supposedly ordered the execution by drowning of the two captured US airmen. He survived the sinking of the Makigumo on February 1st, 1943 when it struck a mine off of Savo Island.

He was assigned staff duties in Cruiser Division 14

He is reported to have been promoted posthumously to Captain after being killed in action.

More IJN Officer Info

CDR / CAPT* FUJITA Isamu (49) - 1 April 1943 - 17 February 1944 (KIA)

So apparently he wasn’t alive at the end of the war. He is also noted for not picking up surviving crewmen from the Hiryu and leaving them stranded.

This article - The Ghosts of Horrors Pasts Part 2: Ritual Suicide

Could Stalin Have Attacked The West In 1945?

If Stalin had attacked the West after Germany fell in 1945, what would have happened? Would the USSR have become more powerful?

Grahame Nicholson, former Police Detective at NT POLICE (1987-2009)

Updated Apr 28, 2019 · Upvoted by Joe Francis, Sergeant in Marine Corps, Officer in US Army, 26 years service

Originally Answered: What if Stalin had attacked the West after Germany fell in 1945, what would have happened? Would the USSR have become more powerful?

These have been well answered. However I will add General Patton's assessment. He did a study shortly after the war and told Eisenhower that in his opinion the Red Army in Europe had enough ammunition to fight for 5 days with sufficient firepower to resist an allied assault. He said they would put up 5 days of resistance and then would also be low on fuel and food as well as out of sufficient tank and artillery ammunition to be a credible threat to an allied advance.

The Soviet supply lines were long and the railways and bridges were destroyed all the way back to Russia and rolling stock was also destroyed and the Red Army had about 1/10th of the transport infrastructure of the allied army.

The Red Army also lacked enough transport to retreat quickly enough to avoid a catastrophic encirclement even before Allied tactical air was applied to the task of destroying the transport they did have.

The entire Allied army was motorized. It could move very rapidly carrying plenty of supplies with it for any encounter battle and would be closely followed by a massive motorized supply train. Red infantry mostly walked.

No supporting Red Army force was available with the transport ability to move the distances required to save them and would be in the same supply situation if they did manage to arrive.

The Allied army had supply dumps sufficient to sustain months of fighting at a high intensity within a short distance of their armies and sooooo much more supplies further back and they had the transport infrastructure to keep it coming with the army. They had enormous reserves of men and equipment not yet committed to the battle in Europe to replace losses. The Soviets were exhausted.

The reason the Soviets were still in the Soviet Union when the Allies invaded France was that they could not get past the Germans. They were slowly winning ground but after every battle they could not advance far because it took them a long time to build up enough supplies of everything and move it forward for their next offensive. Much of the Red Infantry was walking. Trucks were for supplies.

After the Allied successes in invading and then breaking out of the Normandy containment the Germans were forced to swing massive forces west. The Soviets were then able to push forward and make longer advances because they were not using the same amount of combat supplies to cover the same ground. The Germans were pulling back much faster and while the battles were furious still the battles were much further apart allowing the Soviets to advance further each hop.

So the actual assessment based on what counts in major wars, supply situation and industrial capacity, was massively in favor of the Allies, not the Russians. When you take into account that the Allies were supplying around 1/3 of the Soviet war supplies including trucks, tanks and aircraft you start to realize the Red Army was a long way from home with no friends and existing on the good will of the Allies.

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Indonesia Will Build A New Capital

INDONESIA

Hard Rise

The leader of the fourth-most-populous country in the world, Indonesia, has big plans.

President Joko Widodo recently tapped former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, billionaire SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, and Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to lead a blue-ribbon committee overseeing the construction of a new $34 billion capital city for the archipelago nation straddling the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the South China Morning Post reported.

The announcement came after the president – widely known as Jokowi – also secured $23 billion in investment for infrastructure projects during a visit to the United Arab Emirates, Reuters reported.

In those meetings, Sheikh Mohammed expressed interest in property that he might develop. “The crown prince asked for an island with cool air and nice beaches,” said Indonesian Maritime and Investment Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, according to the Jakarta Post. “He really wants to invest there.”

Indonesia’s current capital, Jakarta, is sinking. Its buildings are slowly settling into soft, swampy land while the waters of the Java Sea and 13 rivers crisscrossing the city rise due to climate change. By 2050, around 95 percent of the city will be underwater, the BBC explained.

Jokowi also expects to raise $20 billion through a sovereign wealth fund, Reuters wrote. The largest Muslim-majority country in the world, Indonesia is banking on Gulf foreign investment to boost the nation’s growth of 5 percent in recent years. That number would be impressive for most developed countries but has lagged behind Asia’s two other giants, China and India.

He also expects to spend money on defense, including potential submarine purchases to address “geopolitical and geo-strategic” issues, according to Turkey’s Anadolu Agency.

Indonesia and China have been at odds over their claims to islands in the South China Sea. As Asia Times wrote, a combination of resolute naval displays and savvy diplomacy led to Indonesia fending off an incursion of Chinese Coast Guard and fishing vessels into its economic territory. That story also detailed a host of new Indonesian military purchases.

In World Politics Review, Joshua Kurlantzick issued some words of caution. Jokowi is doubling down on building the economy but has not tasked himself with political reforms that will help keep that economy strong in the long run. His government is a mix of veteran, sometimes corrupt politicians and younger reformers and technocrats. Some cabinet members have close ties to powerful business leaders. It’s not clear if everyone will put his agenda above their own.

Indonesia is fractious, but it’s a country of the future.

Nuclear War Planning and the Challenge of Civilian Oversight | National Security Archive

Nuclear War Planning and the Challenge of Civilian Oversight | National Security Archive

USCYBERCOM After Action Assessments of Operation GLOWING SYMPHONY | National Security Archive

USCYBERCOM After Action Assessments of Operation GLOWING SYMPHONY | National Security Archive

16 Years In Our Home

      16 years ago today we started living in this house. Escrow had closed and I go the keys. Elena came with a sleeping bag and started living in the house. She needed to be near her hospital in San Francisco. On the day after her birthday, 25 January, I came with a U-Haul truck and a crew of Mexican workers. We moved all the furniture in. On Monday 26 January, I cleaned what was left in the old townhouse in San Jose. I brought Copernicus and Eloisa to live in their new house. We were very poor in those days.

    The house was a disaster. Pacific Gas and Electric came out and "red lined" the heating system because it was leaking natural gas. Immediately we had to install a new central heating system. The yard had no fence. We had to put in a chain link fence in an effort to keep the dogs from escaping. How we found the money I will never know! The house was a disaster and falling apart. It took us seven years to get the remodel going.

    In the worst of the bad times the debt on the house went up to $745,000 and the house was worth $395,000. I wanted to abandon the house and avoid a huge loss. Elena refused to leave pointing out that in Argentina people never abandon their home. She proved to be right and for a reason that she never saw coming years ago-climate change. We're sitting in "a climate change sweet spot." The fog protects us from fire. We sit on solid rock. The house is solidly bolted to the foundation. Earthquake damage would be minimal. We are at least 1/2 mile from the ocean and sit 53 feet above sea level. A tsunami would not destroy the home.

     Everyone the house would now sell for between $1,200,000 and $1,300,000. Our debt has dropped from $745,000 to $105,000.

     Anna when you were a young lady of 17, I talked to you about independent thinking. My words to you were:

     "When everyone in the world tells you that you're wrong and crazy and you know that you're right; go ahead and do it!"

       Everyone told Elena to abandon this house. She relied on independent thinking. She turned a huge defeat into a great victory!

    Everyone please reflect on this!!!

The Clerics May Lose Power In Iran

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/01/14/iranian-clerics-risk-being-overwhelmed-by-a-crisis-they-created?cid1=cust/dailypicks1/n/bl/n/20200114n/owned/n/n/dailypicks1/n/n/na/379330/n

Carlos Ghosn: Rumors of my escape are inaccurate

Some Startling New Revelations About Homelessness

For today, my colleague Conor Dougherty spoke with Dr. Margot Kushel, a leading homelessness researcher:

Margot Kushel is having the moment she never wanted to have.

Dr. Kushel is an internist at the University of California, San Francisco. She started specializing in low-income populations shortly after graduating from the Yale School of Medicine, and has spent two decades researching the underlying causes and consequences of homelessness in relative anonymity.

Lately, however, she’s seen her profile rise, as the problem she has spent her career trying to solve has escalated.

Last year, Dr. Kushel was named director of the Benioff Homelessness Initiative at U.C.S.F., which was endowed with $30 million from Marc Benioff, the billionaire founder of Salesforce. The initiative is focused on translating proven homeless solutions into widespread adoption and continuing to research what isn’t known.

Dr. Margot KushelNoah Berger

Here’s the conversation, edited and condensed for length:

Tell me about your career and how you ended up specializing in homelessness.

When I started residency, I realized that approximately half of the inpatients we cared for were homeless. We would admit patients to the hospital, give them all this very high quality, expert medical care, and then, eventually, we would have to discharge patients back to their homelessness, meaning to outside. Patients would ask me to please not discharge them, but eventually we wouldn’t have a choice. Inevitably, a few days later, the patient would be back, often in worse shape than they had been in before. I remember thinking that there had to be a different way and decided to change my career plans.

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What was the state of understanding of homelessness when you first got started versus what we know now?

When we first started, people believed that to provide housing, people needed to go through steps. First, a shelter. Then, if they “behaved well” (didn’t use drugs, took medicines, etc.), they could get to transitional housing. If they did everything “right” then they could be offered permanent housing. As a result, only a tiny proportion of people with behavioral disabilities became housed.

Housing First turned that upside down, recognizing that when people were homeless, they couldn’t attend to their mental health or substance use needs (or anything else). This has been enormously successful, housing about 85 percent of the most complex folks. There is overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence that this works — people are housed successfully, and then the other things follow.

What are some of the myths around homelessness?

You hear people saying things like, “You can’t just house people who have addiction problems.” You can, and you must. Another is that homelessness is caused by mental health and substance use problems. We know that most homelessness is driven by economic forces. The vast majority of people who become homeless could be easily housed if there were housing that they could afford on their income. Yes, having mental health and substance use problems are risk factors. But, most people with these disabilities are housed.

[Read more about who becomes homeless and how to help them in The Times’s Your Lead series.]

What don’t we know about homelessness?

There is a lot more work to be done in homelessness prevention. We know that for some people, a small infusion of resources (cash, services) can prevent homelessness. But, for every 100 or so people at high risk, only one will become homeless. So, we need to do a better job of figuring out how we can target efforts.

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Most people who become homeless “self-resolve,” meaning they find housing. We don’t know how long that takes, and whether we could shorten it substantially by intervening. We know that for most people, long-term subsidies are the answer, but there may be people who need shorter term help. We are going to try to figure out who needs what, while working to solve the main problem, which is the shortage of extremely low-income housing.

What would it take to end homelessness?

We’ve always known that most homelessness is a result, pure and simple, of poverty: the lack of a living wage, the lack of affordable housing and the insidious impact of racism. If we don’t fix the fundamentals, we are just patching a leaking ship. And that is what has happened.

It would take an investment in creating and sustaining extremely low-income housing and efforts to increase the minimum wage and to close the existing housing gap. Right now in California there are 22 units available and affordable for every 100 households with extremely low incomes.

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Some people will have disabilities that require assistance, and we need to provide that. The V.A. has leaned in hard to the Housing First principle and has seen huge reductions. Taking a page from what the V.A. has done, we can solve chronic homelessness by fully funding permanent supportive housing.

For everyone else, we need to focus on increasing the supply of extremely low-income housing by building very low-income housing, preserving what exists, and providing sufficient vouchers (right now, only a quarter of households who qualify get them).

It has been profoundly dispiriting to see, for so many years, the issues of housing affordability/living wage, and homelessness ignored on the federal level. And, it has been hard to see the disconnect in people’s mind between housing and homelessness.

   My stomach still felt bad. I hit the toilet again and did some clean-up.

CIA-Created Iranian Coup / Overthrow Of Democratically-Elected Prime Min...

10,000 questions, one certainty: Taghi Amirani at TEDxDanubia 2014

The Team Investigating The Ukrainian Airliner Crash In Tehran

UKRAINE

Whodunnit?

Ukrainian investigators arrived Thursday in Iran to investigate whether the deadly crash of a Ukraine-bound passenger plane in Iran was caused by a missile or terrorist attack, the Financial Times reported.

On Wednesday, a Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 crashed near Tehran minutes after take-off, killing all 176 people on board.

The incident occurred hours after Iran launched missile strikes against US forces in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of top military general Qassim Soleimani by a US drone strike last week.

Iranian officials initially claimed that the plane crashed because of a “technical failure following a fire” on the flight, and strongly rejected speculation that its forces attacked the plane by accident.

Ukraine investigators, meanwhile, are searching for any missile debris, possibly from a Russian-made Tor anti-aircraft missile, after seeing pictures of alleged fragments online.

The team also includes members of the Dutch-led investigation team that looked into the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 by a Russian-made missile over eastern Ukraine in 2014.

A Suspicious Airliner Crash Near Tehran

       Today is a very sad day for our Canadian readers. They are mourning the deaths of 62 of their citizens who died when a Ukrainian airliners crashed after taking off from Tehran's international airport. The total death toll is 176. I have no reports of any Americans dying on the flight.

        The same technology that allowed the US to detect the Iranian missile launches earlier this week, detected an air defense radar lighting up and two Russian SA-15 surface to air missiles launched. These missiles were not fired by the Iranian armed forces. They were fired by a unit of the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC). The SA-15 missile battery had high-technology radar. They should have been able to detect the transponder reading from the airliner and its slow climb consistent with an airliner taking off.

         There are three possibilities here as follows:

1) The Iranian government ordered the shoot down of the plane as "payback" for the loss of their general and hero. This is highly unlikely after they fired the ballistic missiles at US bases with the intent not to injure anyone.

2) There was a tragic mistake. In conflict zones these sad mistakes happen too often. On July 3, 1988 Iran flight 655 was flying over international waters. A US Navy guided missile cruiser shot down the flight with surface to air missiles even after detecting its transponder indicating that it was a civilian airline. For those of you interested, here is the full story:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 

3) The third possibility is that there was a rogue commander at the antiaircraft missile site who decided to "take matters into his own hands" and get some "payback" for the loss of his beloved general. This possibility is very disturbing.

   Iran keeps denying these allegations and claiming that it was a mechanical failure on board the aircraft. The evidence paints a different picture. Iran will eventually have to pay a big settlement to the families of the victims.

    To all of us who climb into those "pressurized tin cans" to be blasted into the stratosphere, and spend hours in an environment with little oxygen and -65 degree Fahrenheit temperatures, this is a warning. There is no such thing as a routine flight.

Moscow: An Artificial White Christmas

Keeping the Holiday Spirit

Decembers in Russia are generally cold and snowy, but last month the capital, Moscow, experienced one of its warmest Decembers since 1886.

The lack of snow during the New Year celebrations forced authorities to put fake snow in Moscow’s streets for the festivities, NBC News reported.

Over the weekend before New Year’s Day, city officials trucked in “snow” – residue from ice cut at local skating rinks – and dumped it in several landmark areas, including the famous Red Square.

Muscovites have been complaining about the “lack of holiday spirit,” as snow is viewed as an important element during the New Year and Orthodox Christmas holidays.

Residents were quite shocked at the sight of artificial snow, with many quipping at over-the-top funding the capital gets in comparison to other Russian cities.

“With the Moscow budget you can buy anything,” one person posted on Twitter. “Even winter.”

Authorities assured citizens that the effort wasn’t costly, but the warm winter has caused some concern about the effects of climate change in Russia.

The warming weather is damaging the sea-ice habitats of polar bears in the Russian arctic, while the thawing permafrost is threatening infrastructure in affected regions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that climate change poses a serious threat to Russia, stressing that action needs to be taken.

Moscow’s budget might not be enough.

Qassem Soleimani"s Terrorist Empire

of cash, so this could keep happening.

Iran's Retaliation For The Loss Of Its Beloved General

Iran’s Retaliation For The Loss Of Is Beloved General

   My readers I am not going to make a specific prediction on how Iran will retaliate. Rest assured that payback is coming.

      Let us get something straight before we begin to look into the minds of the Iranian planners as follows:

1)    Wars burn cash at a startling speed. Iran’s oil provides 10% of its GDP. If Iran loses its oil production capabilities or its ability to transport oil, its cash dries up and what happens afterwards is dire. Iran will find itself without oil, gas, etc. to keep the economy going. “The natives are already restless there.” If the economy totally collapses, there will be social unrest on a level that could bring about a forceful regime change like what happened in 1979.

2)    Rest assured that China, India and Japan are right now madly scrambling around for other sources of oil; already anticipating that oil shipments from Iran will stop.

3)    Russia and China are not going to start World War III over an Iran vs US/Israel/Saudi Arabia battle. The Russians will use such a conflict to make money supplying Iran with arms, technology etc. and with the increase in the price of oil.

    Now let us put ourselves into the shoes of the Iranian military planners deciding what action to take. Please do not underestimate these people or laugh at them. They control the 14^th largest military machine in the world. At first, they will feel enraged. They will want to make some grand move like sinking a US aircraft carrier lurking near Iran.

    Then cooler heads will prevail. If I were in their place, I would employ the principle of “Plausible Deniability.” They are going to make some moves that cannot be easily traced back to Iran. But people will strongly suspect that Iran is behind these actions. Here are some possibilities as follows:

1)    Some cleverly-hidden cyberattacks that make life miserable for people in the US that could include taking down the air traffic control system (I saw this done in Argentina some years ago. It is possible.) Taking down the banking system. Taking down the electricity grid. Launching massive and crippling Ransomware attacks.

2)    Terrorist attacks are an option. They will need to be cautious here. The US, Britain, Europe, Russia, etc. have gotten much better at stopping such attacks.

3)    Use of a nuclear weapon comes to mind. We assume that the Iranian nuclear program has not advanced to the level of building an actual war head. We cannot be 100% sure of this. Iran also could buy a nuclear warhead “off the shelf” from some Pakistanis sympathetic with their Muslim brothers or from money-hungry Kim Jun Un. Such a warhead would not be delivered by an aircraft or a missile. It would be smuggled into some country by terrorists and detonated in a big city. Please read a most-interesting book The Right of Boom. It describes a hypothetical nuclear terrorist attack. Most disturbing is that six months after the detonation of the nuclear weapon, the best scientific minds in the US could not figure out the origin of the nuclear device with the explosive yield of the Hiroshima bomb.

4)    Assassination of US leaders

  My conclusion is these few words: “Get ready for a rough, expensive, and painful ride.”

The Secret War Between Irana nd The US Just Became "A Hot War!"

Now we have the big news event of the day. The US military got very lucky and killed Quesam Soleimani. He is the commander of the Quds forces. This is the elite military branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. (This would be like Heinrich Himmler, Hitler's head of the SS, being killed during World War II.) There has been a secret war with Iran. Now it is not going to be secret. You will again see large numbers of US ground troops in Iraq. They will be fighting Iranian forces. Russia will be providing Iran with its best weapons and technology. You will see cyber attacks and terrorist attacks worldwide. The Straits of Hormuz could be closed. This would cause oil to shoot up to between $200 and $300 a barrel US. This will be devastating for the economies of India, Japan, and China. Please take Iran seriously. It has a population of over 70 million. Despite its bad economy, it makes a lot of money from oil. It has a worldwide network of supporters. If you're planning an international trip in the coming months, be alert. For example, I would be concerned with an Iranian cyber attack targeting the US air traffic control system. I lived through a crisis in Argentina where the air traffic control system was taken down for a number of days. No planes crashed, but no planes flew either.

Was Carlos Ghosn Rescued From Japan By A Private Security Company?

     The other story that caught my eye was the allegation that Carlos Ghosn used an elite private security firm to rescue him from Japan. I have already outlined the security in place around his apartment. What I failed to mention two days ago was that I'm sure that all sorts of listening devices were installed to monitor any sort of conversations that he had with whoever.

     A number of different countries have private security firms. The quality of firms and their personnel ranges from elite and brilliant former intelligence officers and top former special operations soldiers down to rowdy thugs who barely made it through their tour in the military. To make a long story short, these firms are employed to do work that is extremely-dangerous or so dirty that governments do not want to risk civilian and military personnel in such operations. These are operations, that if they fail, governments can claim that they had nothing to do with it.

      The alleged extraction of Ghosn from Japan, is quite simply, like breaking a prisoner out of a maximum-security prison. If the operatives had failed to extract Ghosn, they would be looking at prison sentences between 4-10 years for attempted escape. If some Japanese security personnel had been injured or killed, the prison sentences would go up or they would be facing the gallows in Japan.

       Very few private security firms would take such an illegal assignment. If they did, they would charge a huge premium of up to $30 million US. I doubt that Ghosn had that sort of "spare cash" sitting around. Most of his assets were impaired by various legal actions.

        Any firm undertaking such an assignment would face an additional huge obstacle. A number of countries including the US spend a fortune on signal intelligence intercepts. Agencies like the US National Security Agency and their Australian, British and Israeli counterparts are constantly monitoring the airwaves for suspicious messages and phone calls. Israel even has the capability to "crack" encrypted phone, email, and WhatsApp messages. One mistake in a phone call, email, or messenger text would have blown this plan wide open. The Japanese authorities would have been alerted. If the private security company was based in the US or had contracts with US government agencies, they would be subject to civil and criminal prosecution in US District Court for mounting such an operation.