Category Archives: military strategy

June 26, 2022 · 6:53 pm

General Custer’s Last Stand: Annihilation by the Sioux, 25 June 1876

David Graham, in Quora, …. https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-most-epic-last-stands-in-history/answer/David-Graham-149

On June 25, 1876, after a stumbling night march that exhausted men and horses, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and the 7th U.S. Cavalry attacked Sitting Bull’s village on the banks of the Little Bighorn River in southeastern Montana.

What happened next: Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne warriors under the war chiefs Crazy Horse, Gall and Two Moon wiped out all 210 officers and men in the five companies of cavalry under Custer’s immediate command.

Custer marker on Last Stand Hill | Photo: David Graham

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June 24, 2022 · 1:43 am

Is China’s Eclectic Mix of Communism with Capitalism a Threat?

Tomasz Kamusella, in The Conversation, 26 October 2021, where the title runs thus “How China combined authoritarianism with capitalism to create a new communism”

After the 1989 fall of communism in the Soviet bloc, five self-declared communist states remain today: China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam. Belarus and Venezuela can also be added to the mix as they fulfil the criteria of a communist state – even though they do not officially invoke the ideology. So, at present, the number stands at seven. The question is, now that capitalism is the engine of China’s economy, what is communism today? And if the number of communist states is poised to grow in the near future, as some predict, what does this prospect mean for democracy?

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June 17, 2022 · 7:58 pm

Sandadas Coperahewa’s Lifework

A Bibliography of Published/Unpublished Work by Sandadas Coperahewa (1923 – 2022)

Books:
* යුර ෝපා කලාරේ ලුහුඬු ඉතිහාසරේ සිංහල රපරැළිය හා යුර ෝපා කලා රහළ කලා සසදුව (1958)
[The Sinhala Translation of R.H. Wilenkski’s A Miniature History of European Art and a Comparative Study of European and Sinhalese Art]
* රෙරේ හිමි සෙරුව ( 1991) …. [A commemorative poem on Ven. Pamburana Metteyya Thera of Vajirarama]
* ජගේ කලාකරු කතන්ද – 1 : රලරයෝනාරදෝ දා වින්ි (1992)
* ජගේ කලාකරු කතන්ද – 2 : ෙයිකල් ඇන්ිරලෝ ( 1997)
* ජගේ කලාකරු කතන්ද – 3 : ෆාරයල් ( 1998) …………………. A series of books on World famous artists – Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael

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June 12, 2022 · 8:07 pm

Horrendous Western Misreadings of Sri Lankan Situation in 2008-09

Tony Donaldson’s Capsule Comment in Facebook A Few Years Back++

Michael, …. Two great articles in “Ambassador Blake in Never-Never Land…” and “The imperious interventions of David Miliband….” I am not surprised by any of this. US diplomats should study anthropology for a few years. It might teach them to recognize neo-colonialism in their own value system.

It reminds us that the US., its diplomats and think tanks which operate in the guise of academic institutions, do not present global or universal values as they pretend or claim, but a deeply entrenched relativist one that is tied to US interests (but in this instance, the sheer lack of understanding about what occurs in SL is mind-boggling).

Displaced Tamils on the movein the northern Vanni — from west eastwards in mid-late 2008

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June 8, 2022 · 10:34 pm

A View of Australia from ORCADIAN somewhere in the Orkney Islands

Orcadian, responding to an Email circulated by Thuppahi conveying the views of JOHN LANDER, circulated by Senaka Weeraratne

John Lander, a former Australian ambassador, gives a most thoughtful analysis on the fictions of the China threat. Western diplomats need to return to the basics of what makes for good diplomacy. We are increasingly seeing Western diplomats becoming irrational, bordering on insane.

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May 30, 2022 · 2:33 pm

Face-to-Face in the Solomon Islands: Two Global Giants

Scott Ritter, in Global Times, 27 May 2022, where the title reads “Chinese diplomacy in South Pacific upends US-Australian security plans”

The visit by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to the Solomon Islands on May 26, part of a 10-day tour of the South Pacific, including Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, and East Timor, has stoked western fears about growing Chinese influence in the region. Upon his arrival to the capital Honiara, the Chinese Foreign Minister is expected to sign cooperation agreements with the Solomon Islands.

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (left) holds arms with Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare after arriving in Solomon Islands for a visit on May 26, 2022. Photo: Courtesy of Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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May 19, 2022 · 9:17 pm

Finale: Eelam War IV …. Recalling the Final Stages

Meera Srinivasan, in The Hindu, 18 May 2022, where the title is “Sri Lanka’s War Aniversary: Tamil Victims remembered in Colombo”

Scores of people on Wednesday gathered in Mullivaikkal village, in Sri Lanka’s northern Mullaitivu district, to remember the tens of thousands of Tamil civilians who were brutally killed in the final stages of the civil war in May 2009, when the armed forces crushed the LTTE.

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May 18, 2022 · 4:28 pm

Widespread Lies in the Australian Media on the Ukraine War

An Orcadian**

Herein one sees an example of the lines of disinformation on the war in Ukraine that is commonplace in the Western world. This is the Australian style disinformation published in The Age today [18 May 2022] The headline reads “Siege of Mariupol ends as soldiers leave.”