COACHES HOT SEAT BLOG

For the second time during this football season we have had to temporarily shut down Coaches Hot Seat Central due to flu, cold, or whatever is going around and have the place thoroughly cleaned by Merry Maids!  Several of our children are bringing the flu and/or cold home from school and we have not been able to figure out why there are sick children at school since all our school systems have clear policies about keeping kids at home when they are sick or have a fever.  No, it didn’t make sense that all of us where getting sick over and over again when in past years it has been unusual for us to be getting colds and flu’s from our kids but then at lunch with an attorney that is with one of the top law firms in San Francisco this mystery may have been flushed out.  After some discussion of other issues the fact that sick children have been showing up at kids’ schools more and more and these sick children were getting our kids sick caused this big-time $500+ buck an hour attorney to say:

“Heck, we usually send our children to school when they are sick because my wife and I can’t afford to miss a day of work.”

Wow.  If the rich can’t afford to miss a day of work one can only wonder what the hard working people in the middle and lower classes are going through in our country.

Well, with all of that we had to shift our computers around some on Wednesday and we have worked hard to keep the CHS website updated and hopefully over the next day or so we will be back to normal and back in CHS Central, especially since we have an 8-ball tournament and poker game scheduled for Friday night!

What an embarrassment of riches college football must be these days for people that make a living out of covering the game. (which is definitely not us here at Coaches Hot Seat!).  From a player trying to eye-gouge another player to Pete Carroll’s Trojans getting their ass whipped in the Pacific Northwest!  As Dick Enberg says “Oh, My!”  The only question is where does one start!

Pete Carroll, Oh Pete Carroll – While Pete was trying to blame the loss to Oregon on a confusing “defensive scheme” that the USC coaches forced on the Trojan players the rest of us living in reality spotted something that we haven’t seen in at USC in years and that was Trojan players flat-out quitting during a football game.  Yes, the USC players were befuddled by the Oregon offensive attack but we didn’t see any leadership from the Trojans players and we saw a very obvious amount of lack of hustle and fire which has been the core of Carroll’s USC football teams.  As for how do you beat an offensive spread attack like the one that Chip Kelly is running at Oregon you actually do exactly the opposite of what Carroll gameplanned which is staying in a base defense and telling your players to stay in place and defend their area of the field.  Hogwash!  To beat an offensive attack that can both run and throw the ball effectively you first have all have to pop the QB in the mouth a few times early in the game even if it costs you a couple of scores.  USC was sitting back and playing like a bunch of scared sheep and guess what, those Trojan sheep got slaughtered.  If the Coaches Hot Seat flag football team ever was tasked with playing Kelly’s Ducks neither Kelly nor his QB would have a clue to what kind of defense we were running because we would do everything from putting 3 guys on the defensive line and bringing 8 people to putting 11 people on the line and bringing no one….and yes, we would pop QB Masoli in the mouth a few times very early in the game even we had to bring 11 people to do it so that Masoli would know that to win this game he was going to have to trade a lot of hard hits for the victory.  If you ever want to see how to defend an offensive attack that everyone says cannot be defended look no further than the 1993 Sugar Bowl game when an Alabama team coached by Gene Stallings/Bill Oliver as the defensive coordinator whipped the vaunted Miami Hurricanes coached by Dennis Ericson.  Pete Carroll and the Trojan coaches and anyone else that wants to beat the spread offense or any offense that can both throw and run the ball effectively should throw out their base defense pull up a chair, pay attention and learn.  Better yet call the University of Alabama and have them send a tape of the game to you, because it is on of the favorites at CHS to bring up off the server during the long winter months! (Note:  Miami had much faster team than Alabama but still got its butt beat in New Orleans that night):

Broadcast Team:  The Great Keith Jackson and Bob Greise

Memo to Pete Carroll:  As for your USC Trojans…  Your team flat out quit in Eugene on Saturday Pete when it was confronted with a team that popped it in the mouth and that is problem you had better damn address in a hurry or you are going to have a hellava mess on your hands.  Also, quit trying to convince everyone that Matt Barkley is the second coming of Joe Namath.  Matt Barkley is an average QB on an average football team and nothing more and the more you talk Barkley up the more we wonder why you are trying so hard to prop this kid up…  Is his ego that fragile?  Might be, because if you send Barkley up to San Francisco right now he might be able to work himself into the No. 2 slot on the CHS Flag Football Team, but no way would he be No. 1!  Get to work Pete, because you have a lot of work to do….  Maybe you can ask Dennis Erickson about when Alabama beat his ass in the Sugar Bowl when you see him before the USC – ASU game on Saturday!

Talk about a hellava mess…

Mark Richt has a hellava mess on his hands at Georgia – Everyone in the Georgia media keeps talking about the departures of Moreno and Stafford or that the Georgia defense is not very good (it is mediocre), but we are going to let everyone in on the real problem with the Georgia football team.  Georgia is getting its ass beat by every decent team that it has come up against in recent years because the Georgia football team is OUT OF SHAPE!  Not only is the Georgia football team OUT OF SHAPE it is also WEAK!  Anyone that doesn’t believe that Georgia is OUT OF SHAPE and WEAK just watch the Georgia offensive and defensive lines in games against decent teams….THEY ARE GETTING WHIPPED on play after play and that is because Mark Richt has allowed the Georgia football team to get out of shape and to get weak and if Richt doesn’t want to get run out of Athens he had better get his team into shape and get their asses into the weight room and actually lifting weights and getting stronger.  If Coaches Hot Seat showed up in Athens tomorrow and put the Georgia “Out of Shape and Weak” Bulldogs through our conditioning test we really doubt if half the team would finish it.  Georgia is 4-4 and they have Tennessee Tech, Auburn, Kentucky and at Georgia Tech left.  Even an OUT OF SHAPE and WEAK Georgia football team should be able to win at least 3 of those games, so let’s see what this OUT OF SHAPE and WEAK Georgia team can do!  Maybe in the offseason Georgia can get back to some real conditioning and weight lifting instead of the country club they have been running up in Athens in recent years. 

Would someone please direct ESPN/ABC’s Kirk Herbstreit to the ESPN.com website – If someone directed Kirk Herbstreit to the ESPN.com website, particularly to the webpage of the Boise State Broncos, on that webpage Herbstreit would find the little factoid that he and so many others would rather forget:

Boise State beat Oregon 19 – 8 on September 3, 2009!

Yes, Boise State beat Oregon this season (and last season in Eugene, but whose counting!), but for some reason when Kirk Herbstreit, and ESPN/ABC employee who works for a network that is telecasting the Rose Bowl and the Bogus BCS Bowl, when at the end of the USC – Oregon rout,  put Oregon in his “Top 5 teams” but Boise State was no where to be found!  Of course, for those of that actually follow and have followed the folks at ESPN/ABC, many of them for years have screamed that college football needs a playoff but lo and behold suddenly in 2009 they have seemingly been castrated by the suits in Manhattan and in the Mouse House in Burbank and are suddenly full-on lovers of the BCS!  A surprise?  No, because when someone is signing your paycheck you will do exactly what they tell you to do or you will be out of work and judging by the end of the USC – Oregon game some of these folks will even forget recent history as well.  As Clay Travis of Fanhouse.com points out in a column:  “Every Game Counts, Except Some Count More Than Others” some games must indeed count more than others!  In fact, it seem like that Boise State beat Oregon this season (and last season as well, but whose counting!) has been wiped from the memories of everyone at ESPN/ABC because if they actually have to report on the facts and what actually happens on the field of play the 75 plus percent of the folks at ESPN/ABC that only 340 days ago were climbing the walls demanding a playoff in college football would not be able to get anything coherent out of their mouths.  Realizing that ABC/ESPN was taking over the BCS contract last season, on a very large board at Coaches Hot Seat we have listed the names of every on-air personality and what their position was on a playoff in college football in 2008 and what their position on a playoff is in 2009.  Needless to say, the vast majority of the ESPN/ABC on-air talent in 2008 was screaming from the rafters for a playoff in college football, but in 2009……Let’s just say there are no Patrick Henry’s working at ESPN/ABC, nor even any Pee Wee Herman’s, because we are talking about either a massive brain washing program at the Mouse House that would put the Vietnamese to shame or in fact a “castration by paycheck” program.  Frankly, we wouldn’t be surprised if both had happened, and yet the large board at Coaches Hot Seat screams out the truth for everyone at CHS to see….  Maybe the folks at the FCC would be interested in this list, with attached video from last year and this year as well, because in our opinion never in the history of television have so many people been shut up successfully on an issue, at least at a network that was not being run out of the Moscow during the days of the Soviet Union!

All we can is that Roone Arledge would be ashamed at the lack of conviction and courage at the ABC network, because someone with conviction and courage would have turned to Kirk Herbstreit when he listed out his “Top 5 Teams” and said:  “Hold on there fellow.  Boise State beat Oregon on the field of play, so no way in Hell can you put the Ducks in front of the Broncos, unless of course you are a massive hypocrite.”  Of course, as this blog is being typed we look up at the ESPN/ABC 2008 For Playoff – 2009 Not For Playoff Board and see hypocrites almost all the way down!  Yes, we know who you are and the American people will know who you are too….  Of course, if you have been for the Candy Ass BCS all along, then your Candy Ass shouldn’t worry itself!

 

If you didn’t think that the Bogus BCS was little more than carney barkers on every corner talking up their football teams instead of the national championship in college football being won and earned on the field of play…. – Check out this story by Kelly Whiteside in USA Today, “Schools use public relations blitz to bolster BCS hopes.”  From Whiteside’s story:

“There’s been plenty of stumping and spinning this week that had nothing to do with Tuesday’s elections. About a month before the final Bowl Championship Series standings are released, some college football programs have cranked up their campaigns.”

Is this really what college football has come to, PR hacks at major universities sending out their views of their team’s performance in hopes of swaying public opinion?  Is this what the formerly great game of college football has been reduced to, dueling PR hacks putting out propaganda like the same political bums that have destroyed the country.  Please, if you were stupid enough to believe in the BCS before you read this column then certainly you cannot be stupid enough to still believe in the Bogus BCS after reading this hogwash.  The sad thing is that if you stuff enough money into people’s pockets and call something a bed of roses when it is really a pile of shit it will always amaze the folks that have their heads screwed on straight how many buffoons will look at that pile of shit and say “Oh My, that smells good!” 

Speaking of a buffoon…

There might not be a bigger buffoon on the planet than the columnist Ron Morris for The State (Columbia, SC) who wrote a recent column titled:  BCS playoffs are working just fine.  In that column Ron Morris forgets the entire history of the Bogus BCS.  How about this line from the column:

“The BCS works because the regular season essentially operates as the playoffs. Every game is of utmost importance because any loss could eliminate a team. As we head down the homestretch of the regular season, we have reached the quarterfinals of the playoffs.”

And then this buffoon writes something that he must know is lie or in our opinion is outright propaganda:

“Of the 120 FBS teams, eight remain in contention for the national championship. They are unbeaten Florida, Alabama, Texas, Iowa, TCU, Boise State and Cincinnati, as well as one-loss Southern California.” (written before USC lost to Oregon)

Really?  So we guess that Ron Morris really believes that TCU and Boise State have a legitimate shot to play in the Bogus BCS title game.  Please, even Ron Morris can’t be that stupid, but then read his column and you will have Evidence “A” of the Candy Asses that are propping up one of the most obscene systems in sport today on the planet.  The Bogus BCS.  Yes, you got it right Ron Morris, in our opinion you are Candy Ass.  No, you are a Candy Ass Extraordinaire!  Jed Clampett’s “Pitiful, Pitiful” does not even do just to Morris’ column, but then looks around and you will find Candy Asses everywhere, most of them concentrated in the media that get their own asses kissed like kings when they show up at BCS games…..And don’t think that there isn’t a very good reason you are getting your ass kissed!  Of course, the Nazis knew how to use propaganda very well to manipulate the media to prop up a massive fraud and they often forced the media to shut-up employees of the very same media on issues they didn’t want discussed in the public.  Does that sound familiar? 

If one wants to be reminded of some of the crap that the BCS has pulled during its existence just read the summaries of each season for the BCS at this page on Wikipedia.  We challenge Ron Morris or any of the other Candy Asses that support, defend or prop up this absurd BCS to read what has actually happened each with the BCS and still say they support this bullshit.

BCS Controversies

Luckily, the members of today’s media that have been told to sit down and shut-up were not around in the 1770s when our coming was beginning a Revolution.  What was it the Great Patrick Henry said?

“Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death!”

What do the folks in the media that have been neutered by their bosses say?

“I have Oregon as the No. 4 team.”

Yes, it really takes a fool that is willing to forget what has happened on the field of play or someone that has been shut-up by their bosses to make the above statement. 

Memo to anyone in General:  Boise State beat Oregon 19 – 8 in September of this year, but with Ron Morris and Kirk Herbstreit in the media you might as well wipe that game off the board, just like the Nazis did with millions of their fellow German citizens.  Don’t think that is apt comparison?  Please tell us the difference between a bunch of people in Brooks Brothers suits telling people to shut up and a bunch of people in grey Nazi uniforms doing the same exact thing.  There is no difference.  That is why the FCC should take a very hard look at the BCS and we are confident that they will and boy we hope there isn’t a paper trail telling people to shut up about a playoff or even worse to talk down “non-BCS” teams because that might get someone or something into a hellava mess!  Like a felony indictment for violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act which will be doubly bad since that violation would be across state lines on the airwaves that are owned by the American people.  Oh, we certainly hope that someone in the Mouse House didn’t tell the on-air talent at ESPN/ABC to talk down “non-BCS” teams because if they did then somebody might be going to jail.  We believe we already know just by watching ESPN/ABC in 2009 that the word “playoff” has been banished by on-air talent, but the concerted effort to talk down the Top 10 “non-BCS” teams by EVERYONE, well almost everyone, at ESPN/ABC strikes us as not only very odd but seemingly planned and orchestrated.  Just an observation….       

As for us, we will stand with Patrick Henry before we would give the time of the day to the Candy Asses that have sold their soul to their masters who manipulate them like puppets on a string.  Real Americans do not let themselves be paraded around by the nose no matter how much money they are being paid, but then there aren’t a whole lot of Patrick Henry’ around our Republic anymore, are there?

Now let’s imagine a world without a bunch of Candy Asses running the game of college football….

Now let’s get to the Post-Week 9 Coaches Hot Seat Power Playoff Poll:

Coaches Hot Seat Power Playoff Poll, Post-Week 9

1. Texas*

2. Alabama*

3. Florida#

4. Boise State*

5. Cincinnati*

6. TCU#

7. Oregon*

8. LSU#

9. Georgia Tech*

10. Iowa*

11. Penn State#

12. USC#

13. Houston*

14. Pitt#

15. Utah#

16. Ohio State

17. Miami

18. Arizona

19. Oklahoma

20. Wisconsin

*Conference Champs

#At-Large Teams

Other Conference Champs

MAC – Central Michigan*

We now use the above Power Playoff Poll to seed a 16-team college football postseason playoff tournament, although we would prefer that a committee similar to the committee for the NCAA basketball tournament be used to pick the 7 wild card teams and then seed the 9 conference champions and 7 wild card teams in the postseason tournament.  Below are the First Round Games if the season had ended after Week 9.

First Round Games – Friday/Saturday December 18-19, 2009

Texas – Big 12 Champion

Central Michigan – MAC Champion

 

LSU - #3 At-Large Team

Boise State – MWC/WAC Champion

 

Pitt – #6 At-Large Team

Utah – #7 At-Large Team

 

USC – #5 At-Large Team

Florida – #1 At-Large Team

 

Penn State – #4 At-Large Team

Oregon – Pac-10 Champion

 

TCU – #2 At-Large Team

Georgia Tech – ACC Champion

 

Cincinnati – Big East Champion

Iowa – Big Ten Champion

 

Houston – CUSA/Sun Belt Champion

Alabama – SEC Champion

Now let’s see here:  Take a month off from football, play 4 meaningless exhibition games and one Bogus title game OR take two weeks off and then start a college football postseason playoff involving the 16 above teams.  Anyone that chooses the BCS over a 16-team playoff is very simply a CANDY ASS but then just look who is running this massive fraud called the BCS and you will find CANDY ASSES everywhere one looks…..

How about the above first-round games!  USC – Florida in the Swamp in Gainesville!  Penn State at Oregon!  TCU at Georgia Tech!  Cincinnati at Iowa!  LSU at Boise State!  Please, if there is a MAN, and we are talking about a real MAN, not someone that claims to be a man because he pees standing up (although we suspect some of these Candy Ass BCS Boys pee sitting down!), that would choose the Bogus BCS over a 16-team college football postseason tournament then the United States of America is finished!

 

Speaking of America, if you are bored with anything but college football stop reading now….

Meanwhile in the Real World….

What did Coaches Hot Seat learn from the elections on Tuesday?  Yes, there are a lot of Americans that are very skittish about President Obama’s proposals, especially on health care, but the real lesson is one you will not hear from the elitists in the media and that is that the American people are tired of both of the political parties doing little more than rearranging the deck chairs of the Titanic as the United States of America careens toward an iceberg of debt that will destroy our Republic.  America has been at a grand party and we have all stayed way too long and the folks in Washington DC and in state capitols across the country have refused to face up to the reality that this party of out-of-control spending will destroy our country if something is not done soon to change course.

It is time for the United States of America to face the very hard facts that confront our country.  It is time to end the endless debates about “public option, Don’t ask don’t tell, the complete and utter fraud that is global warming and climate change (more on this subject soon as this bogus idea tries to work its way out of the US Senate), Acorn, which party is up and which party is down, and other ideas and subjects that have nothing to with the very serious problems that are facing our country.  If not for the US Treasury giving away our children’s future with the selling of Treasury bonds by the tens of billions every week and the Federal Reserve creating money out of thin air to prop up some very dubious financial markets, our country would already be on its knees and unless we act very soon to address the massive debt that our country has and is creating by the billions everyday that debt and the interest on  that debt will eat up the entire country and all of our communities and families.  The story is not much better on the state level, especially here in California where only a massive fraud of an accounting trick and absolute horseshit has gotten the pols in Sacramento a few more months to try and figure out a way to get more blood when there is no more blood to be had.  California is on its knees as it is overburdened by high taxes, massive regulations of all kinds, a state government that not only is hostile to business but right now has its hands around business and is choking the life out of all of us.  Very simply, America is on the edge of disaster and the political parties and the media elite that serve them are little more than a debating society worrying about which party of pol is up while the American Empire is coming apart at the seems both at home and abroad.  It’s time to quit rearranging the deck chairs and start addressing the very real problems that confront our nation.

No, the elections on Tuesday did not signify the return of the Republicans or a defeat of the Democrats.  What it did signify was that the American people are fed up with the bullshit and we want our elected leaders to really address the problems that are nation faces by actually addressing those problems head-on and not cater to the political lobbyists that have purchased Washington DC and our politicians like cheap whores for a measly few million dollars.

It is time for action, on healthcare (although the current two bills that are being promoted by Democrats in the House and Senate that spend over $1 TRILLION DOLLARS over the next decade and are little more than payoffs to the drug industry, health insurance companies, trial attorneys and anyone else that can scramble up a few dollars to buy the votes of a House or Senate member through campaign contributions are not really the answer.  What is really sad is that if either of these healthcare bills pass in their current form they will set-up a new federal entitlement that will surely grow by a huge multiple factor to what they say it will cost and the cost of health insurance to Americans that get their insurance in the private sector will not go down even one dime.  In fact, at our companies we are facing 10 percent increases in our health insurance premiums in 2010 and even more in the coming years as more and more the health care system shifts the real cost of health care to the people that have private insurance.)  No matter what the President, Nancy Pelosi (who is part of the California Democrats that have delivered the state of California to the brink of insolvency and still pile on more taxes and regulations that not only cannot be paid, but will not be paid by anyone that has the common sense to leave the state.  Yes, we have lots of common sense and that sound you hear Nancy is thousands of more jobs fleeing California for other states and overseas while the Dems twiddle their thumbs and are actually stupid enough to try and transfer the damage they have done to California to the entire country) and other Washington DC pols plan with the healthcare bills that are now being considered are little more than a scam and everyone including the President knows they are a scam because they start collecting taxes in 2010 but don’t start giving out benefits until 2013.  They also claim that they will cut Medicare and Medicaid fees dramatically in the coming years and everyone knows that will never happen with the clout that the doctors have on Capitol Hill.  Yes, both healthcare bills are a scam and are so badly designed that they will destroy the American Republic even sooner than predicted because of the billions more in “entitlements” that they will create as they tax the very people in the country that create 95+ percent of the jobs in this nation.  Yes, we need action on real healthcare reform that will actually cut the cost of healthcare in the country and have an impact upon the rising health insurance premiums that are having a real impact on our companies’ bottom line and dramatically affecting our ability to hire new employees.  We also need action on a real energy bill that addresses energy issues and isn’t designed to punish the American people and reward large corporations, T. Boone Pickens (Boone, why did you get involved with these idiots?) and those greedy bastards on Wall Street.  Yes, it is time for action in our country, but not the usual Washington DC let’s see what Senator or House member I can buy today with a “campaign contribution.” 

Certainly we are not counting on the idiots that got the United States of America in a hellava mess to be the one’s to get us out of it, mainly because these fools will drive this ship until it hits the iceberg and sinks and then throw their hands up and say:  “Not our fault.”

Idiots!

With all that being said, what we would really like to discuss in the “Meanwhile in the Real World” section of CHS is the hellava mess that the US now finds itself having to deal with in the Middle East.  Anyone that has spent any amount of time in the Middle East/Persian Gulf knows that is one of the most dangerous and exotic places on the planet and that it is also an area of the world that is critical to the national security of the United States.  We all know the reason that this region is so important and that is the amount of oil that we import from Persian Gulf countries (about 20 percent of our oil), which if we did not import would bring our country’s economy to a halt.  Since everyone should agree that for the foreseeable future, especially as long as the environmental wackos in the US are willing to sacrifice the lives of Americans because we will not drill for every drop of oil we can get from the US and our territories, we need the oil from the Persian Gulf and thus we must stay engaged in the region. 

With that mind we turn to the issue of our current negotiations with the Iranian government over their refining of uranium and if they will agree with the US, Western powers and Russia to export their uranium to other countries for processing thus eliminating their ability to build a nuclear weapon.  It is very important that the Iranians agree to the current deal being offered by the Western powers and Russia over their uranium because we believe that the current Iranian government or any Iranian government that we can possibly discern might come into power in the near to medium future cannot be allowed to build a nuclear weapon.  There are a lot of reasons that Iran should not be allowed the capability to build a nuclear weapon, but the primary reason is that they have leaders that have threatened neighboring countries with destruction, particularly Israel, and it is our opinion that it is unacceptable to let the same madmen that stormed the US embassy in Tehran 30 years ago to have access to nuclear weapons.  No, we rather doubt that the Iranians are stupid enough to use nuclear weapons on any of their neighbors because we are quite sure that most of their country would disappear from the planet moments later, but the real danger is that these bastards could hand off nuclear weapons to terrorists who will then deploy those weapons in terrorist nuclear attacks.  Talk about a changed world, if a terrorist group is able to get their hands on a nuclear weapon then the world will not only become a much more dangerous place, countries across the globe could then be subject to potential nuclear blackmail where a group might explode one nuclear weapon and then claim they have 5 more in 5 different cities.  No, that clearly cannot be allowed to happen and that is why President Obama and the Western powers/Russia must make it very clear to the Iranians that although we will allow them to develop nuclear power, we will never under any circumstances allow them to have the capability to build nuclear weapons.  In fact, we feel so strongly about the danger of the Iranians getting the capability to build nuclear weapons that if they do obtain that capability and even worse explode a nuclear bomb underground in their country, President Obama will have failed the country and put all the Western countries in great danger.

With all of that mind, we only wish that the American and Western countries negotiators would have had the same experience that several of us here at Coaches Hot Seat had while serving in the US military in the Persian Gulf.  One of the best liberty ports in the Persian Gulf is Dubai, United Arab Emirates, because Dubai is as western as any country can be in that area of the world and there are plenty of places for American military men to get a drink and lay back and relax for a few days, like the beach!  One area of Dubai that would be particularly helpful to our negotiators when dealing with the Iranians is the Dubai Gold Market.  A few of us had heard that you could buy gold very cheap at the Dubai Gold Market and we went over to check it out (this is years ago now, during the First Gulf War in 1991) and we quickly learned that the prices at the Gold Market were not only very negotiable, the fellows that were running the gold shops would put any used car dealer in America to shame.  After stopping in a few of these gold shops we were met with a lot of frustration, flim-flam, trickery, BS and about anything else you could imagine that a Arab/Persian/Iranian gold merchant might try to pull on what he thought was an unsuspecting member of the US military.  In other words, a patsy!

Well, after a few trips inside these gold shops we decided to go with a new strategy in that we took $1,000 US dollars into the shops and without telling them how much money we had to spend and then we instructed them take down several gold pieces that we knew even with a heavily discounted price they would not agree to sell for $1,000 dollars.  We would then have them put those gold pieces on the counter and make them an offer for “all of it….$1,000 dollars.”  Of course, that offer was met with shrieks and screams so that you thought you just stolen their first born, but over the next 10 minutes or so we and the gold merchant came to an agreement to buy a set amount of gold pieces that were priced much higher than our final and only offer of $1,000 dollars.  When the Arab/Persian/Iranian shopkeeper knew that we were not going to budge was when the real negotiating began and we stuck firm to a set price below the list price (as recommended by Americans that we had met in Dubai) and they agreed, reluctantly of course to sell the gold to us at our price.  Now, the gold shopkeeper surely made money on the deal or he would not have completed the transaction, but he made a lot less than normal, and we mean a lot less than the average American or foreign patsy that walked into the Dubai gold market would pay.  Also, guess what, when the deal was done both of the shopkeepers that we had done business with looked us in the eye with a grin on their face and said “thanks” and that was the kind of “thanks” that comes from someone that is raised in a culture that values someone that both knows the value of something and is willing to fight for his position, in other words someone that values the art of negotiation.

One may ask what the Dubai gold market has to do with the US and the Western countries negotiating with the Iranians over their uranium, but we think many people reading this blog already get our point.  In an area of the world that is very foreign to Americans, where everything from the price of a cab ride to Michelob Light is up for negotiation it is very important for Western negotiators to realize that the Iranians rather enjoying negotiating with the West because it gives them some power and clout in the world, but also because negotiating for things is deeply woven into their lives and society.  Realizing that background, if we were negotiating with the Iranians we would take them aside away from the formal negotiations and say something like:

“Now, we both know it is in the interest of Iran to do a deal with the West over your uranium and we really want to complete a deal with your country, but make no mistake about it, if you walk away from these negotiations the Western powers led by the United States will destroy your nuclear weapon capability and we will do it with a lethal force that will kill many of your people.  On the other hand, we are willing to make it look like you did not capitulate to the Western powers and that you drove a hard bargain with us and that you will actually gain something in return for your good will in these negotiations, but there is a limit to our generosity.  We will give you 10 days from today to come to an agreement with us on the processing of your uranium and if we do not come to a deal we will wipe your nuclear facilities off the face of Earth.  We are willing to help you economically, culturally, we would love to have an US embassy back in Tehran, but we will not tolerate the Islamic Republic of Iran to gain the capability to build nuclear weapons and you can take that reality back to your leaders and tell them so.  Now, would you like some tea?”

You see, that is how someone with real experience in the world would handle the Iranians, instead of the stuffed-shirted Ivy Leaguers that are so often leading US diplomatic efforts abroad.  Yes, we could not only get the Iranians to agree to a deal to process their uranium and get them to back-off their drive to build nuclear weapons, but we could also make it look like to the Iranian people that the Iranians won or at worst got a draw in the negotiations.

Too bad there are so very few people working for the US government that have any real experience in the real world.

The Bottom-Line:  The Iranian government cannot be allowed the ability to build nuclear weapons.  Anything short of denying them that capability and the US and the Western powers/Russia will have failed in the negotiations with Iran and will have made the world a much more dangerous place.

 

While we have someone’s ear, what about Afghanistan….

Several of us here at Coaches Hot Seat have read General Stanley McChrystal’s report on the war in Afghanistan and the recommendations he has made for 40,000+ plus troops to be added to our war-fighting efforts in that country and for the life of us we don’t have a clue to what the General is talking about.

The first question we have is, if the United States of America is at war in Afghanistan against the Taliban, terrorists and indirectly the Al Qaeda then how in the world did you come up with 40,000 more troops?  By our very quick look at our children’s globe it looks like Afghanistan (which is bigger than Texas) would need something on the order of 200,000 – 300,000 more troops to effectively wage war in that country and we are perplexed to just what in the Hell 40,000+ more men will do than just get thousands more Americans killed, only in larger numbers than we currently see coming out that region.  What really galls us is that we have all of these “chicken hawks” out there that have never served a day in the active military and have never been in real shooting war that have the audacity to scream out that President Obama should just drop to his knees and kiss General McChrystal’s ass and send 40,000+ more our very precious young men and women to fight in a war that is clearly not winnable. 

As Union Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman once said:

“War is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers”

That quote really drives home the point that is should be the United States civilian leaders that make the critical decisions regarding the deployment of the US military to war zones to fight for our country and why it takes a real idiot to say someone along the lines of “We should just do what the General/military says and give them the additional troops.”  One wonders about the elected officials that make a statement like that are thinking, because if we are always just going to do what the “generals” tell us to do then what is the point of having elections?  No, the idiots can’t answer that question without lots of stammering.

In General McChrystal’s report he says:

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”

Defeating the insurgency?  Just when the Hell did the United States get into the business of “defeating the insurgency” in Afghanistan instead of finding, killing or bringing to justice the people that committed the terrorist acts on 9/11, which is the Al Qaeda, which are not even Afghanistan?  Please, this McChrystal report is hogwash and is nothing more than a commander in the field that sees great glory for himself while our fine young (and old these days) men and women die, and for what?  For nothing, that is for what! 

Now maybe we are just a bunch of idiots, but when we look around at some of the buffoons that are debating this subject on the cable channels we find very few that have any actual experience in the US military or in a war zone.  President Obama and much of his White House staff also have no experience in the military and that must make it doubly difficult on them as they consider matters of war and peace and if the United States should make yet another commitment of our US military to that area of the world.

Of course, all of this could have been avoided if the Bush Administration would have put all of the US military and our intelligence agencies efforts into hunting down and killing the Al Qaeda and their enablers in the region, the Taliban right after 9/11.  Instead, the dunces in the Bush Administration, many if not all that also had not served on active military duty and/or in a war zone, including President Bush, almost immediately after 9/11 turned their attention to the attack on Iraq to remove a two-bit dictator that would have left the country if we had offered him a few million dollars a safe passage to an Arab country.  Instead we are heading towards spending 1 TRILLION DOLLARS in Iraq and the place is still a hellava mess and one can only wonder with all of the great things we could have done with that 1 TRILLION DOLLLARS right here in America.

Since we oppose adding new troops to Afghanistan as requested by General McChrystal one might ask what would we do in this situation if were calling the shots.  Well, here is what we would do.

A.  We would leave the current troop strength in Afghanistan, which is somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 troops.  Over the next few years we would look for opportunities to reduce that force as more Afghanis stood up and fought for their country against the Taliban.

B.  We would craft a military strategy that focused entirely on flushing the Al Qaeda out of Pakistan and the Pak/Afghan border and begin to build an Afghanistan force that could take on the Taliban.  The Taliban are recruiting, arming and paying young men very well to fight for them and we would just bite the bullet and pay more and put together loosely formed brigades of Afghans that could fight against the Taliban.

C.  We would ramp up the activity of the operational sections of our intelligence agencies to work with our US military to help disrupt the Taliban and flush out the Al Qaeda and also to support our friends in the region.

D.  Lastly, we would not implement the counterinsurgency strategy that is so in favor in the US Army these days where members of the Army move into towns and villages in hope of winning over the local people, moving to protect them and hopefully win them over.  We believe that we could get the same thing accomplished by working with Afghanis to help recruit young men that could help us to fight the Taliban and to become members of the Afghani forces which would not put at risk our US soldiers in these remote villages.

One of the main reasons that we would not add additional troops to the Middle East region now is that we believe it is time to “turn down the burner” in the region relative to the United States’ military activities in the Middle East.  One of the greatest recruiting tools for the Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are the presence of US troops in the Middle East, especially when they are killing people, even when they are killing the bad guys for good reasons.  We believe that for too long that US public policy pronouncements like “war on terrorism” have placed the United States to much into the public arena and now after fighting Iraqis, Afghanis and all kinds of other people in the Middle East region going on nine years now it is time to “turn down the burner” and move most of our efforts behind the curtain where it was for most of the 60 years after World War II. 

As for how we implement this new military strategy in Afghanistan it is very clear to us that the current commander in the region, General McChrystal, has already made it very clear in leaks to the press, on 60 Minutes, appearances in Europe and elsewhere that he will not be able to “win” in Afghanistan without the additional troops that are called for in his report so that leads to the obvious conclusion that McChrystal must be replaced.  If we were the President we would meet with our National Security Advisor General James L. Jones, VA Secretary General Shinseki, Colin Powell and other military advisors that we trusted to find a new general to implement this new strategy in Afghanistan. 

We would call back General McChrystal to Washington to meet with the President at the White House and we would say to him:

“You have better PR than I do!  60 Minutes, leaks to Bob Woodward of the Post, appearances in London, military people all over DC and elsewhere talking you and your military plan up.  You know, you had a lot of us here at the White House believing that you were the Commander in Chief instead of the President, so maybe I should remind you of Section 2, Clause 1 of the US Constitution since it seems that somewhere along the way in your military training and career you have forgotten the meaning of “Chain of Command.”

“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.”

Do you understand that section of the US Constitution?  Good, because from the way you have been behaving over the past few months one might think that you believe the US military is in charge of the US government.  Now, as of this moment I have relieved you of command of your current position and I have asked the General of the Army to reassign you to a position at the Pentagon.  Along with relieving you of command I am directing you that for as long as you are an active duty member of the US Armed Forces that you do not talk about your duties in Afghanistan nor do I want you talking negatively about our new strategy in the region.  If you want to be a media star then you will have to resign from the Army and I am sure the folks over at the Pentagon can help you with your retirement if you like. 

Now I would like to thank you for your service to the nation and Good Luck.”

That is how Coaches Hot Seat would handle Afghanistan because we do not feel that the current proposed counterinsurgency strategy will do anything more than get a lot of our treasure, our US soldiers killed, and for what, to stabilize a country that has never and will never be stabilized?  It is time for US policy in the Middle East to return to a laser beam focus on finding and killing the people that attacked the US on 9/11, working with our friends in the area behind the scenes to counter our foes in the region with our intelligence services, and only using our US military forces when needed to provide a military presence to counter organized groups like the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but always working with locally hired and training military forces that can fight for their countries themselves. 

Lastly, as we mentioned earlier it is time that we “turned the burner” down in the Middle East region when it comes to the use of the US military and return much of our operational activities to the realm of our intelligence agencies and special forces that can operate behind the scenes to achieve our goals for the region.  We will always have a significant military presence in the Persian Gulf, especially with the US Navy, but we don’t think it makes much sense to keep large numbers of the US military in Middle Eastern countries when the presences of those troops often works against our goals for the region.  Our US Navy, special forces, intelligence agencies, and some “X” number (smaller than is now in the Middle East) of US Army and Marine forces should be in the Middle East, but right now at this particular time in history we believe it is time to reduce our overall footprint in the region and focus very sharply on the goals of:

1.  Killing or bring to justice the perpetrators of 9/11

2.  Work with Afghanis to build an Afghan force that can fight the Taliban

3.  Finish negotiations with Iran making sure they do not gain the capability to build a nuclear weapon

4.  Complete the withdrawal of most US forces from Iraq

5. “Turn down the burner” in the region and move most our operational activities in the Middle East to our intelligence agencies, special forces, US Navy, augment with US Army and Marines when necessary.

See, Coaches Hot Seat has an opinion on things beyond football!

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