The Errors Tour

War is not business by other means. Lives lost cannot be written off in bankruptcy court and neither can the other debts incurred.

Mr. President

Mr. Secretary of War

Mr. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor:

We have prepared this tour for you and members of the Senate and House Foreign Relations, Armed Services and Intelligence committees.

Here is your itinerary.

PENSACOLA, FLORIDA

Your first stop will be Pensacola, Florida, where the Spanish military commander Bernardo Vincente de Galvez y Madrid, the Count of Galvez, defeated British forces in the Siege of Pensacola in May 1781. He later drove the British out of the Mississippi Valley, eliminating any potential backdoor threat to American forces from the west.

This stop is also a reminder that Spain contributed substantial monetary and military aid to our American revolutionaries under the 1779 Treaty of Aranjuez.

YORKTOWN, VIRGINIA

Next, we’ll stop at Yorktown, Virginia, where U.S. and French forces under Gen. George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau trapped and defeated Lord Cornwallis’s British troops after the French fleet under the Comte de Grasse defeated the Royal Navy in the Battle of the Capes and trapped Cornwallis’s forces on the Yorktown peninsula.

OTTAWA, CANADA

Our next stop will be Ottawa, Canada. Mr. President, while you’ve been talking about annexing our northern neighbor, you need to be reminded (or informed) of our country’s eternal debt to Canadian troops who have risked and given their lives in America’s 20th Century wars.

We will visit the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, which is Canada’s capital, and visit Galleries 3 and 4, which remember Canada’s roles in defeating Nazi Germany, and later in supporting our forces in defending North America during the Cold War and later in the Gulf War, Afghanistan, Somalia and the former Yugoslavia.

https://www.warmuseum.ca/exhibitions/from-the-cold-war-to-the-present-canadian-experience-gallery-4

NARSARSUAQ, GREENLAND

While you have renewed your interest in seizing control over this vast Arctic island from Denmark, another longtime ally, we’ll make a brief stop at the site of Bluie West 1, a key allied and locally supported airbase and refueling stop during World War II.

(Side note: This writer’s father might owe his life to the Greenlanders who supported Bluie West 1. He served in the Eighth Air Force during World War II and was returning to the U.S. from one of his tours in Europe when the starboard engine of his C-46 transport plane caught fire and the plane was forced to land there.)

We will spare you a visit to Pituffik Air Base, formerly called Thule, farther north, where Danes and Greenlanders serve along with our forces. Vice President Vance has already been there, although he left locals and Danes scratching their heads when he said they “ultimately would partner” with us when we’ve been partners since 1941.

At this time, we see no need to compare Venezuela’s reserves of lithium and other strategic materials to those in Greenland and China’s interest in developing both because you already have been briefed on that, in case you might have forgotten in your busy schedule.

KEFLAVIK, ICELAND

We’ll make a brief stop in Iceland and another key World War II base outside Reykjavik, the capital. (Unlike Greenland, Iceland is an independent country.)

RESISTANCE MUSEUMS

It is worth remembering that as we learned in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan, and as we hope not to be reminded when we are running Venezuela, resistance forces and terrorist groups can inflict serious casualties and foment instability..

For reminders, and to pay tribute to World War II resistance fighters, both men and women, and some of the men bearded and out of shape, and how they played important roles in the defeat of Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan. They sabotaged railroads and enemy assets; rescued our downed fliers, shipwrecked sailors and wounded soldiers; carried messages and provided intelligence, just as our CIA’s agents did for us in Venezuela.

We cannot cover them all, but here are the ones we will visit:

• NORWAY RESISTANCE MUSEUM

We’ll stop briefly in Oslo, the capital of Norway, at the Akershus fortress, to remember heroes such as Lena, who carried coded messages through Nazi checkpoints with her groceries.

https://www.forsvarshistoriskmuseum.no/norges-hjemmefrontmuseum/en

• MUSEUM OF DANISH RESISTANCE

Our next step will be the Museum of Danish Resistance in Copenhagen, which is pronounced Coubenhavn.

Because we are short on time due to your tee time at the Trump International in Scotland, we’ll be joined by representatives from the Verzets Resistance Museum in Amsterdam — the original one in the Netherlands, which is sometimes called Holland, not New Amsterdam where you were a reality tv star. Someone from the National Museum of the Resistance in Brussels (like in Brussels sprouts that you dislike) will also be there, and Prime Minister Netanyahu has suggested that you and Mr. Miller, if he joins us, ask them about the efforts to rescue Jewish people from the Nazi occupiers.

https://www.verzetsmuseum.org/en/jewish-children-rescued-from-deportation

https://en.natmus.dk/museums-and-palaces/the-tee museum-of-danish-resistance/

https://www.brusselsmuseums.be/en/museums/national-museum-of-the-resistance

FRANCE

We’ll make two stops in France because in addition to providing essential help to American revolutionaries, the French resistance played a critical role in helping American and allied forces free Europe from Nazi tyranny. Some French leaders, it is true, cooperated with the invaders because they were too scared to stand up for their own country and their neighbors, but there are no monuments to them.

First, we will stop at the French Resistance Monument in Sainte Marie du Mont in Normandy. In tribute to the long alliance between the United States and France, it is located at 22 Street of the 101st Airborne Division, whose soldiers parachuted into Normandy during the invasion on June 6, 1944.

https://www.normandybunkers.com/memorials/french-resistance-monument

Then we will visit the beaches where allied forces landed that day. Of course, we will pay homage to the brave Americans who landed on Utah and Omaha Beaches and lay a wreath at the Normandy American Cemetery, where 9,388 of our countrymen are buried.

In a departure from traditional presidential visits (we’re checking to see if you can claim it’s a first, at least since President Eisenhower), we’ll also visit Gold, Juno and Sword Beaches, where our Canadian and British Commonwealth allies stormed ashore. The first wave of Canadians at Juno Beach suffered casualty rates that almost reached 50 percent.

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-d-day-beaches

LONDON

Despite our differences over Ukraine and President Putin’s frequent reminders of the enormous sacrifices the Soviet Union made to help win World War II, we’ll make a brief stop in the capital of the United Kingdom (not England) for two reminders.

First, we will tour Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s War Rooms, where we can listen to some of his famous speeches rallying the British people in the dark times before America shook off its America First isolationism and joined the fight against Nazi Germany two years after the war in Europe began. As they say in Britain, CNCO — Churchill Never Chickened Out.

Because another chapter of our joint history is often forgotten or buried because they did not end in the expected victories, we then will visit the Peace and Security, 1945 to 2014 gallery to remember British support for U.S. actions in Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq.

https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/peace-and-security-1945-2014

BEIRUT

If our Embassy deems it safe, we’ll make a very brief stop in the capital of Lebanon (pronounced bayroot) to remember that Britain, France and Italy sent troops to assist our Marines in trying to stabilize Lebanon after Israel invaded in 1982 to defeat terrorists who used Lebanon as a base.

Most Americans have heard that 241 Americans were killed on October 23, 1983; fewer know that a terrorist bombing killed 55 French paratroopers that day.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/129760.Best_Laid_Plans

IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN

Our troops readily defeated the Iraqi army and the organized Taliban forces, but we cannot stop in Baghdad or Kabul because the missions there were not accomplished. As we fly over, however, we can remember that 30 countries joined Operation Desert Shield in 1990 and 18 more provided military, humanitarian or economic assistance. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, our troops were joined by forces from Australia, Britain and Poland (yes, the same one Russia is harassing with drones now), and later 42 countries joined Operation Iraqi Freedom.

When we invaded Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 40,000 Canadians, 9,500 Britons and 5,500 Canadians were among some 130,000 NATO troops that joined our air and ground forces. In Helmand Province, Danish troops saw the worst fighting their county’s forces had seen since the Second Schleswig War in 1864.

Of course, as many as 150,000 Afghans, including family members put at risk by their support for our and our allies’ forces, joined the fight against the Taliban. Some are still in hiding there, betrayed by Biden’s reckless withdrawal agreement that you had no choice but to implement.

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-D114-PURL-gpo18375/pdf/GOVPUB-D114-PURL-gpo18375.pdf

AUSTRALIA and NEW ZEALAND

We have too little time to visit two of our most valuable allies, but you have briefing books on the Museum of the Pacific War in Canberra, Australia and the New Zealand Memorial in Wellington, which is the capital of New Zealand. We stationed some 100,000 of our troops there during World War II,

In 1943, although he lacked any golden battleships, the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, called the alliance of the U.S. and the ANZAC nations — Canada, Australia and New Zealand — “an example to all the world of what can be accomplished by a fraternity of free men”.

THE PHILIPPINES and VIETNAM

Enroute home, we won’t have time to stop and recall the support our forces in Vietnam got from our naval and air bases in the Philippines or the recreational opportunities our hosts provided. It’s also a reminder that South Korea deployed 320,000 troops to South Vietnam and lost 5,000 killed, while Australia sent 60,000 and lost 521 killed, Thailand sent 12,000 and the Philippines 10,000.

Although North Vietnam conquered the south, The People’s Republic of Vietnam is now a valuable trading partner, and you might be interested to know that the country has good beaches and nice people.

SOUTH KOREA

Long before you and Respected Comrade Kim Jong-un began your historic effort to repair relations between two enemies, our country fought to prevent the Communists from seizing all of Korea, much as they now have seized New York City. South Korea deployed double the number of troops that we did, and 15 other nations also contributed to the effort, which ended in a stalemate that would not have happened if you and Secretary Hegseth had been in charge instead of the gun shy President Dwight Eisenhower, who must have been a RINO.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:The_Allied_Powers_in_the_Korean_War.

With the cooperation of CIA Director Ratcliffe but not DNI Gabbard, we have provided a separate briefing book on foreign cooperation with our intelligence community, including the satellite facilities at Pine Gap in Australia and Akrotiri in Cyprus and human intelligence from Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, Taiwan, Colombia and many other nations, although that has diminished significantly since last January 20.

Please do not share this material with Secretary Hegseth or President Putin or take it home to Mar a Lago.