Islamic Terrorists and the President's who allowed it.

 

Looking back today at our war on terrorism since the 20^th anniversary of 9/11 is at hand.  I thought about the timing of the growth of three terrorist organizations. The Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Isis.   

Al Qaeda started in 1988 under Bush 41 but really didn’t start to grow very much until the early 90’s.  At that time another group was forming, the Taliban.  Both groups grew and were under the radar of our then President Williams J. Clinton.  One could argue that because they were under the radar they were allowed to grow and flourish under his administration culminating in Al Qaeda’s attack on the US less than 9 months after President George W. Bush was inaugurated in January of 2001.  We know the outcome of allowing or ignoring Al Qaeda’s rise to power when the Twin Towers came down, the Pentagon was hit and a fourth plane that was headed for the Capital building in Washington D.C. was thwarted by the heroic actions of the plane’s passengers which prevented that group of terrorists from reaching their target.

President Bush’s administration waged what could be considered a pretty successful war against Al Qaeda and to some extent the Taliban for the next seven years as well as the war in Iraq. 

President Barack H. Obama continued to fight the war on terrorism that was started under President Bush, but one could argue that it was more half-hearted in its execution because of changes in the rules of engagement the military was forced to fight under.  While his administration made some strides and had some success including the killing of Bin Laden.  They also had a series of blunders and failures in places like Iraq, Benghazi, and others.  The Obama administration severely underestimate ISIS, calling them the JV team and were not successful in stopping the spread of ISIS throughout the middle east, not to mention the growing strength of the Taliban again under the radar of a democratic administration following the vacuum of leadership that remained after the Americans withdrew from Iraq.

President Trump and his administration took over the fight and took on ISIS and our military was unshackled and quickly drove ISIS back, Freeing Iraq from ISIS rule as well as other areas of the middle east.  He pushed for the end to fighting in Afghanistan and developed a plan for a conditional withdrawal. While the date was earlier than the August 31^st that President Biden set, one could argue if President Trumps withdrawal plan of civilians and allies first, equipment next and military last, he may have well been able to complete it on his timetable. 

But elections have consequences, and we will never know If he and his administration could have completed this withdrawal in the time-frame he originally set.  President Biden decides to withdraw the military without coordination with our allies in the middle of the might leaving civilians to the mercy of the Taliban.  Now he said nobody could have predicted this would happen. Apparently, he did not learn from the history of Vietnam in the 70’s or even the abandoning of Iraq during the Obama administration of which he was a part.  ISIS took over in record time just as the Taliban did in Afghanistan. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, (George Santayana) who was later misquoted by Winston Churchill saying that “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it”. Regardless of who said it or how they said it, President Biden who lived through both tragic withdrawals Vietnam and Iraq, should have learned from his own history as a participant in those historic events and should have known this would happen again. 

Islamist terrorists had been allowed to thrive and grow under three presidents.  Al Qaeda under President Clinton, ISIS under President Obama and now the Taliban has taken over an entire country and is gaining strength beyond what they enjoyed under the Clinton years under this president, Joe Biden. 

Apparently, the democratic party and its leaders either don’t care that these groups are brutalizing women and minorities, destroying all of the progress made over the last 20 years just as long as it doesn’t have an effect on the democratic party power base and their vision of a one-party system of government for American under their own iron fist.   Maybe they are allowing this to happen to give them a road map for their own takeover of our nation and how to take care of those who oppose them in the name of freedom.  

Retired and doing a lot more cooking.

 I've retired for the second time.  The first was from the military after 30 years and now from Eduction after 20 years.  I still love cooking and will be posting more recipes than I have in the past.  I've now started doing more Instant Pot and more Sous Vide cooking.  so I'll post what I make and what I like.  If you find them helpful.  That's great.  

Yesterday I combined my two cooking methods.  I sous vide two tri-tip roasts using my Anova Sous Vide machine and at the same time, I used the sous vide function of my Instant Pot to sous vide two more.  All four were cooked for 6 hours at 135 degrees F.  Plunged into an ice bath to stop cooking and then flame-seared just before serving.  One thing I can say is, when it came to eating,  I really couldn't tell the difference between the Anova and the Instant Pot Tritip.  Both were tender, juicy, and flavorful.  No complaints at all.  

Didn't take pictures of all of them but this is an example of the results. 

Chris

It’s been sort of a week of revelations, not the biblical kind but the revelation of how much I still don’t know about cooking, dieting, food etc. For instance, I use my automatic rice cooker all the time and every once in a while I actually use it for rice. I found I’ve been cooking my Japanese rice wrong and probably all rice wrong as well. I would just take my rice, rinse it until it is clear, put it in the rice cooker with the appropriate amount of water and hit the button when it’s done, open the lid and serve. Right? Wrong! The correct way according to several sights I visited because my rice wasn’t coming out the way I needed it to for my bento box recipes (we’ll talk about this later) is to first wash the rice as I had done until the water runs clear. Then put the rice in the rice cooker along with the water and let it sit for 30-60 min. THEN you close the lid and hit the cook button. When it changes to ready you leave it closed for another 30 min to allow the rice to steam. I tried it and guess what it came out just fine. Better than when I just opened it up when the rice cooker said it was ready.

The reason I wanted good Japanese rice is because as part of my New Year’s Resolutions was to eat better. You see I go to work at 7 AM, My class starts at 9 and finishes between 12:30 and 1PM. I hop in the car and go home for lunch. Take a nap or go to the gym (usually the nap). Go back to work at 4, class starts at 6PM and lasts until 9:30-10PM. I come home and eat dinner. Then go to bed about midnight. Not a real healthy way to live. And doing that has put about 100 lbs on me over the last 3 years.

After the first of the year I discovered (actually my wife told me about it) bento box lunches. She’s been trying to get my daughter to use this with my granddaughter. It’s simply creative, attractive, quick, nutritional lunches in reusable containers. The reusable containers is what caught my wife’s attention she hates throwing away things that can’t be recycled. ANYWAY I digress. I started looking at the book that came with the bento box she got for Samantha. The recipes didn’t look bad at all. Lots of Japanese influence and with a good planner, well balanced. She used the book “Lunch in a Box” you can find this at http://lunchinabox.net/ website.

Searching for a short time on the internet produced a wealth of information and I found it’s not just for kids, but most of the bento boxes are. I just couldn’t see myself going to teach adult students with a Hello Kitty bento box under my arm. So I looked for adult versions and found everything from beautifully crafted, lacquered and hand painted bento boxes for adult to some more modern thermos style. So I got a Mr. Bento from Amazon. This way I could because I get to work around 5 had some time to eat before class. And wouldn’t have to eat a full dinner at 10PM or later after I got home.

As I said earlier Bento Box lunches or meals are strongly influenced by Japanese cooking so things like Onigiri, Kombu, Dashi, and Katsuobushi have taken over my kitchen and my cooking. Learning new ingredients and some new styles of cooking beyond roasting, braising, sautéing and other traditional western techniques of beef and chicken etc has been fun and I’m finding ways to use many of the new ingredients and techniques with some of the western.

As I said I needed to change the way I cook rice. My old technique did not produce the proper texture or consistency needed to create Onigiri or for that matter Nori rolls and other rice dishes. I can highly recommend the technique I found on http://japanesefood.about.com/ their other cooking lessons are excellent as well.

If you want to know more about Bento Boxes here are a few links you may find useful:

http://lunchinabox.net/

http://justbento.com/

http://hubpages.com/hub/Bento_Box_Recipes

http://www.cookingcute.com/recipes.htm

There are MANY others out there. You can go to Flickr and find a whole group of folks who share their recipes and photo’s of their creations. I never thought I would be using a paper punch on nori to create decorations for a rice cake or fancy bladed scissors to cut seaweed to wrap onigiri.

The result has been healthier meals at the right time to eat and not being hungry after 10PM when I get home. Do I still have a snack at that time. I’d be lying if I said no. but I’m also not eating a full serving of lasagna with sides and garlic bread an hour before I go to bed too early to tell the results other than feeling better and sleeping better and I guess that alone is worth the time and effort.

Check out Bento Boxes, use them, you might just see fewer disposable containers going to the land fill, you’ll have more interesting, decorative, tasty and healthy lunch or dinner than stopping by the fast food places. The only thing that limits what you can put into the Bento Box is your imagination.

Have a great day and remember Life is too short to eat bad food.

Chris

mrs. moore's blog
Some GREAT Recipes !

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Chris

Eclectic Kitchen III

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Did you ever wonder just how hot peppers are or how hot hot sauce is? Well here is a handy dandy chart to help you figure out just how hot those peppers and hot sauces are. Another site you will want to visit is Hot Hot Hot dot Com these folks know hot sauce. Give them a try.

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apokalupto: Adventist Blogs

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Chris

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If you like good cheese THIS is the place to go. Click on the link above and your on your way. I've been eating pinconning cheese, Kogels vienna hotdogs and pickled bologna for as long as I can remember. The prices are good and the cheese is even better. Try the Extra Sharp Cheddar. If you want some good hotdogs. Try their Kogels Vienna Hot Dogs, they are the best. Down load their catalog and give them a try.

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While this isn't a cooking site. With Modzilla Firefox your computer can really cook. Here are some great plugins for your Firefox browser.

Chris