#north vietnam fighter

[usafphantom2]

T-28 Trojan dropping napalm cans

@MAC_VSOG via X

[cid5]

Viet Cong soldiers dig a trench to be used as a heavy machine gun position during the Vietnam war, circa 1968.

[centrally-unplanned]

VOR: Henry Kissinger

Ugh, HUGELY overrated, Bismark has nothing on him. What, truly are his accomplishments? Oh, rapprochement with China? You mean the country that had just experienced a huge split with the Soviet Union, to the point where they were scared of military conflict, that was simultaneously backing North Vietnam in a war against the US? And so we opened doors to them and gave them literally everything they asked for, hanging Taiwan out to dry, and in return got absolutely nothing; China's aid to North Vietnam actually *increased* the year after? The corpse of a roadkill dog could have done that.

The "cease fire" with North Vietnam? That's just losing with coat of paint to poorly cover the shame! At least he had the self-respect to try to return his Nobel Peace prize. Ho Chi Minh handed him his ass on a platter and somehow that is a win on his ledger.

Accelerating arms sales to the Shah of Iran in order to back separatist fighters in Iraq? Whoops! Wow, that uh, wow what a call there. Really picked the right side.

Coup against Allende in Chile? That went well! Not to mention...he didn't. Chile coup'd Chile, Allende was a complete disaster imploding the country's economy. The Chilean military asked for permission as like a token gesture, we gave them support that didn't matter. Its like taking credit for a sports team win because you bought box seats, except at this game they dropped the opposing team's family out of a helicopter headfirst onto the pitch.

All the SALT treaty stuff started under Johnson, he continued it which is fine but is VORcel stuff. His grand "pivot to Europe" was trying to link trade policy to increases in defense spending from European partners...which didn't happen. They didn't increase them. We gave them trade deals anyway. Its fucking Trump without the memes.

On March 1, 1973, Kissinger stated, "The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy, and if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.

Awww "I'm such a cool little edgy boy, look at me and my joke about the Holocaust when discussing systemic discrimination against Jews the Soviet Union, surely this will somehow score me Realpolitik points on the Big Board that I can cash in for prize money while shedding America's moral legitimacy because it makes my dick hard."

He is the academic definition of style over substance, snottily walking from fuck-up to disaster to status-quo free ride and putting a pithy quote about The Nature of Power over it to pretend he had any to begin with. Hurry up and die already so I can stop running into you haggling over hostess tips at overpriced Georgetown restaurants.

F-

[dronescapesvideos]

F-4 Phantom II of Fighter Squadron (VF) 142 pictured on final approach for recovery on board the carrier Constellation (CVA 64) steaming in the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam on August 14, 1967

➤VIDEO: https://youtu.be/hDDOCds46l0

➤VIETNAM AND KOREA: https://dronescapes.video/Vietnam

[city-of-ladies]

Women warriors in Chinese history - Part 1

“In the nomadic tribes of the foreign princesses from the Steppes northwest to the northeast of the Chinese borders, women habitually rode horses and were frequently also skilled militarily. They had to be able to survive on their own and defend themselves when their men left camp to herd animals for months on end. Thus, unsurprisingly, many daughters of nomadic and semi-nomadic tribal chiefs were also capable fighters. Madam Pan 潘夫人 of “barbarian origins” during the Wei dynasty, the semi-barbarian Princess Pingyang 平陽公主 who helped establish the Tang dynasty, and the “barbarian queen,” Empress Dowager Xiao, are historical examples of this category of female generals.

While the barbarians to the north were known as fan 番, those belonging to peripheral areas from the southwest to the southeast were known as man 蠻. Like the nomadic princesses, these women of non-Chinese or Chinese ethnic minority groups did not bind their feet and could thus become formidable opponents. Indeed, the female battle units within the Taiping 太平 rebel forces that actually entered combat – rather than merely providing labour as most of the female units did –were reportedly made up in the main of women from the Miao 苗 tribes, aside from the Hakka (Kejia 客家) women of Guangxi. 

Female bandit leaders or daughters and sisters of bandit leaders who occupied mountains or established strongholds in marginal lands are almost indistinguishable from the man barbarian princesses of tribal chieftains in novels and shadow plays. Such barbarian women generals and female bandit leaders were rarely privileged enough to be recorded by the historians. The three found most frequently, Madam Xi 洗夫人 (502– 557), Madam Washi 瓦氏夫人 (1498–1557),95 and Madam Xu 許夫人 (1271–1368), were all pro-Chinese. While the first two cooperated with the Chinese government, the third joined Chinese forces against the Mongols. A certain Zhejie 折節 or Shejie 蛇節, a female leader of the Miao tribe, also led a rebellion against Mongol troupes, but she eventually surrendered to them and was subsequently executed. 

Real enemies of the Chinese empire, such as the Trv’vy sisters of Vietnam, are hardly ever mentioned by the Chinese, even though they are first recorded in the Han dynastic history. Even under such circumstances, of the women commanders in Chinese history studied by Xiaolin Li, a hefty per cent were from “minor nationalities.”

Female rebel leaders and women warriors in rebel forces tended to rise from peasantry and marginal groups such as families of itinerant performers, robbers, boatmen, and hunters. Many of them are beautiful and charismatic. Most of the rebel groups were basically bandits (known as haohan 好漢, “bravos” euphemistically) – how else could they have survived without a continuous source of income? Many of the bandit groups, like the sworn brothers of the Water Margin, lived in mountains and marshlands, awaiting a chance to start or join in an uprising with the hope of gaining power and legitimacy through either pardon (when they posed too great a threat to the state) or founding a new dynasty. Many had sisters, wives, or daughters who were also capable of leading armies.”

Chinese shadow theatre: history, popular religion, and women warriors, Fan Pen Li Chen

[brotherwtf]

Age gap AU, how Gale and John deal with Bucky's PTSD?

I would say from a normal person stand point not well but to them they're thriving I think

John had done two tours, one in Vietnam and one during the Gulf war, a pilot of helicopters and fighter planes during both bombing campaigns, while not as gruesome as WWII would have been, he still has seen some shit

he'd seen his friends die, had to watch paratroopers and soldiers get burnt alive in burning forests, had heard the screams of soldiers dying, had seen planes go down like flies and could do nothing to protect them

when John and Gale had first met, John wasn't doing great, he had nightmares every night, slept with a knife under his pillow and a gun in the side drawer, his hands always shook and his brain couldn't convince itself that he was safe, he still felt like he was flying over enemy territory, dodging missiles and MiG's, always watching his six in case someone came up from behind, in short John was very much struggling when he met Gale

helping Gale helped to lessen the demons that haunted him at night, it was second nature almost to have someone rely on him, someone who needed him. It felt normal, almost, to have someone to protect, brought him back down to earth a little bit

he would still have nightmares, though, even after he and Gale starting living together and dating, and the first time he sprung up from his bed screaming with Gale laying beside him was a horrible night. Gale didn't quite understand what was going on, John barely talked about serving, so when he woke to John screaming beside him, thrashing his arms and blindly searching for something on his bedside table, but Gale just shushed him, sat up and held his arm, told John that it was okay, he's safe, he's going to be alright

and John looks manic, looks feral, almost, and Gale's horribly frightened because he's never seen this happen to anyone before, but by God he's going to stay by John's side and they're going to get through this

after a while, Gale's able to calm John down, a hand on his arm and on his back, keeping a respectable distance in case John lashes out again, telling him it's going to be alright, and John would nod his head, keel over into Gale's shoulder and breathe heavily, holding onto him with a vice grip that Gale refuses to admit hurts, he's going to be here for John no matter what

Gale manages to coax what he needs from John, what happens when he wakes up screaming, why he always looks behind him nervously in crowded areas, he doesn't ask John for the full story, only needs bits and pieces so that he can help John feel safe

Gale becomes a pro at it eventually, knows not to hold onto John whenever he wakes up thrashing, grabs his arms only so he doesn't flail around, forces John to look at him so he knows that he isn't in the skies over north Vietnam, he's here in bed with Gale, makes John look at him whenever they're in crowded places so he isn't constantly checking his six, a warm smile on Gale's face as he continues their mundane conversation to keep John distracted

some days are worse than others, especially after John's second tour he sometimes can go non-verbal for a whole day, stuck in a continuous loop of screams and whirring plane engines, but Gale knows to just talk through it, John will eventually find his voice through the mud

John copes healthier now, doesn't drink or smoke as much because he knows how much Gale doesn't like it, but it doesn't really matter, Gale's a better fix than any other vice he can get his hands on :))

these traumatized boys oh dear they're perfect for each other

[historyfordummies]

The Vietnam War

French colonisation of parts of Southeast Asia (French Indochina)

While there were previously conflicts between different areas of Vietnam, the start of the Vietnam War (or, as the Vietnamese call it, the American War) lies in the French colonisation of Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asia (such as Laos and Cambodia).

2. World War One and the Paris Peace Talks

It was during this period that much of the colonised countries (not just in East and Southeast Asia, but globally) decided to request international assistance in freeing them from their imperialist rulers, partly motivated by the Paris Peace Talks, where U.S. president Woodrow Wilson stated that all nations have the right to self determination. This gave hope to leaders of independence movements all over the world, so Kim Kyu-sik and, importantly, Hồ Chí Minh, who requested U.S. support for Vietnamese independence. This, however, was ignored by Wilson, and it became obvious to leaders of independence movements across the world that the right to self determination was a right given to "white" nations only. This did its part in radicalising some of these movements, who now knew that they could not depend on Western assistance in their struggle for national self determination and independence.

3. World War Two and the First Indochina War (The French War)

During World War Two, Vietnam, as much of East and Southeast Asia, had been colonised by Japan. For countries such as Korea, this meant their first experience with colonisation, but for Vietnam, it was exchanging one colonial ruler for another, with little substantial difference for most Vietnamese.

Significant, though, was the end of the war and Japanese surrender, leading (most) Japanese troops to be expelled from Vietnam through the August Revolution. For a short period, an independent Vietnam seemed possible; the Việt Minh (Việt Nam Độc lập Đồng minh Hội; League for Independence of Vietnam) were made the government of the now independent Vietnam, under the leadership of Hồ Chí Minh (who had disassociated from his communist ties to fight for a unified Vietnam), and with (now former) emperor Bảo Đại as "supreme advisor" to the Việt Minh government.

Part of the success of the Việt Minh was owed to their massive popular relief efforts during the Vietnamese famine, which, much like the Irish famine in Great Britain, had much to do with French and Japanese colonial adminstration forwarding Vietnamese food to their own countries while the Vietnamese were starving.

This independence, however, was not due to last. With the Japanese surrender, the French anted "their" colony back, but met fierce Vietnamese resistance. The Vietnamese, naturally, did not want to be re-colonised by the French now that they had regained independence, however briefly.

The First Indochina War (in Vietnamese known as the French War) was what followed, with French troops and the Vietnamese Imperial Army fighting Vietnamese independence fighters under the Việt Minh. The French, however, were devastated by World War Two and unable to keep a colonial war going for very long; they simply did not have the means. This is where the United States comes into the picture.

4. The French War becomes the American War (Second Indochina War)

After it became clear that the French could not keep up the war, the Geneva Accords of 1954 temporarily split the country along the 17th parallel, promising elections in 1956 (much as had been the case in Korea, and with similar success). This resulted in a communist North and a South led by the pro-American president Ngô Đình Diệm.

The United States, much in contradiction of their declaration that every nation has the right to self determination, had supported the French, who were not able to continue their war economically, since they had to focus on rebuilding France. For much of the First Indochina War, the United States stood for majority of the costs, as much as 70%. They also provided troops, equipment, and, eventually, they took over the war, partly motivated by the Domino Theory, which hypothesised that if one country falls to communism, its neighbours will soon follow. After the defeat on the Korean peninsula, which established a communist North Korea, and after the "Loss of China", they did not want yet another communist country in Eastern Asia. So they fought.

Worth noting is, though, that they did not fight the North much. Instead, they focused on finding "Communist collaborators" in the South, using this as an excuse to spray large parts of the South with Agent Orange, and to kill numerous civilians, oftentimes after torturing (or, in the case of women and girls, raping) them. Body counts became a competition, and any Vietnamese could be labelled a Communist collaborator, though the Americans did not always even bother claiming that. Entire villages were slaughtered, and racism among the American troops ran rampant, causing them to treat the Vietnamese as less than human. Song My/My Lai is perhaps the most well known massacre of a Southern Vietnamese town, but by far not the only one. This "search for communist collaborators" devastated the South, and is the reason why most Vietnamese refugees are originally from Southern Vietnam, contrary to what one would expect when knowing that it was North Vietnam who was the "communist enemy", and South Vietnam was supposed to be the United States' ally.

The U.S. were not able to successfully fight the North Vietnamese troops, and as the war dragged on, it became obvious that the United States would not be able to win. So, instead, they tried to find a way to retreat without being humiliated.

5. "Vietnamisation" of the War

This, along with a constantly worsening public opinion, led to the "Vietnamisation" of the war, meaning that the United States would remove its troops and leave the South Vietnamese to fend for themselves. What followed rather soon was the Fall of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, which was captured by Northern troops. Thus, Vietnam was united under the North Vietnamese, with Lê Duẩn (General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam since 1960) as fe facto head of state.

6. Other Aspects Worth Noting

The Vietnam War was very useful for South Korean dictator Park Chung Hee, who offered the United States South Korean military support in exchange for economic support for the South Korean economy. Additionally, he used it as leverage to keep the U.S. "tame" regarding some of his policies that the U.S. government would not otherwise have accepted as easily as they did within this context.

South Korean troops were known as some of the most brutal ones towards the South Vietnamese civilians.

Additionally, calling it the "Vietnam War" is misleading, since the Americans also bombed parts of Laos and Cambodia, despite not formally being at war with them. The North Vietnamese fighters got much of their supplies through mountain paths in these countries, which, to the United States, meant they were free game. This, however, is not usually mentioned in discussions of the war, nor is the Third Indochina War, in which Vietnamese troops invaded neighbouring Laos and Cambodia, and which forced China to intervene, making use of the domino theory themselves, claiming Vietnam had to be stopped from throwing its neighbours into chaos.

Sources:

Lecture materials (will not disclose the names of my lecturers/my university for privacy reasons)

Brocheux, Pierre: Ho Chi Minh. A Biography

Hägerdal, Hans: Vietnams historia

Immerwahr, Daniel: How to Hide an Empire. A Short History of the Greater United States

Kim, Byung-Kook & Ezra F. Vogel: The Park Chung Hee Era. The Transformation of South Korea

Smedberg, Marco: Vietnamkrigen 1880-1980

Turse, Nick: Kill Anything That Moves. The Real American War in Vietnam

Young, Marilyn B., John J. Fitzgerald & A. Tom Grunfeld: The Vietnam War. A History in Documents

See also: Snow in Vietnam (Amy M. Le), All They Carried (Tim O'Brien), The War Prayer (Mark Twain) for fictionalised narratives.

[alex99achapterthree]

Phantom Friday...

Pardo's push.

An epic story of guts and ingenuity. Captain Bob Pardo used his own damaged Phantom to push his wingman's crippled aircraft to an area safe for ejection. From Wikipedia: (they write it better than I could...)

Captain Bob Pardo (with Weapon Systems Officer 1st Lt Steve Wayne) and wingman Captain Earl Aman (with Weapon Systems Officer 1st Lt Robert Houghton) were assigned to the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, 433rd Tactical Fighter Squadron, at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. In March 1967, they were trying to attack a steel mill in North Vietnam just north of Hanoi. On March 10, 1967, the sky was clear for a bombing run, but both F-4 Phantom IIs were hit by anti-aircraft fire. Aman's plane took the worst damage; his fuel tank had been hit, and he quickly lost most of his fuel. Aman and Houghton then determined that they did not have enough fuel to make it to a KC-135 tanker aircraft over Laos. To avoid having Aman and Houghton bail out over hostile territory, Pardo decided to try pushing the airplane. Pardo first tried pushing the plane using Aman's drag chute compartment but turbulence interfered. Pardo then tried to use Aman's tailhook to push the plane. The Phantom, having been originally designed as a naval aircraft for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps, was equipped with a heavy duty tailhook for landings aboard aircraft carriers and for emergency arrestments ashore. Aman lowered his tailhook and Pardo moved behind Aman until the tailhook was against Pardo's windscreen. Aman then shut down both of his J79 jet engines. The push worked, reducing the rate of descent considerably, but the tailhook slipped off the windscreen every 15 to 30 seconds, and each time Pardo had to reposition his plane to do it again. Pardo also struggled with a fire in one of his own engines and eventually had to shut it down. In the remaining 10 minutes of flight time, Pardo used the one last engine to slow the descent of both planes. With Pardo's plane running out of fuel after pushing Aman's plane almost 88 miles (142 km), the planes reached Laotian airspace at an altitude of 6,000 feet (1,800 m). This left them about two minutes of flying time. Both crews ejected, evaded capture, and were picked up by rescue helicopters.

Initially Pardo was reprimanded for not saving his own aircraft but the case was re-evaluated in 1989 and all four crewmembers were awarded the Silver Star.

Epic!

[mariacallous]

In May, pro-independence demonstrations spread across New Caledonia, a small Pacific island territory that has been ruled by France since 1853. Waving the flags of the Indigenous Kanak people as well as the flag of the pro-independence Socialist National Liberation Front, demonstrators took to the streets to protest voting reform measures that would give greater political power to recently arrived Europeans.

Curiously, however, they also waved another flag—that of Azerbaijan. Although the similar colors of the New Caledonian and Azerbaijani flags led some to speculate whether the demonstrators had inadvertently acquired the wrong flag, other observers viewed the presence of the Azerbaijani flag as an indication of ideological support from Baku.

It turns out, the Azerbaijani flags were not mistaken. Since March 2023, Baku has strategically cultivated support for the New Caledonian independence movement under the guise of anti-colonial solidarity. As payback for French diplomatic backing of Armenia after Azerbaijan’s 2020 invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku has disseminated anti-French disinformation related to New Caledonia. Following the outbreak of protests this May, France publicly accused Azerbaijan of doing so.

Baku’s influence campaign successfully inflamed long-simmering hostilities toward French descendants in New Caledonia, culminating in violent demonstrations and riots, which triggered a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron—as well as French police forces—even though Macron ultimately issued a de facto suspension of the reforms.

The incident in New Caledonia is hardly an isolated one. Anti-colonialism, which rose as a powerful ideological force during the 1960s and 1970s, is having a resurgence, and its philosophical underpinnings continue to shape some of the biggest geopolitical crises of the day, from Gaza to Ukraine. But unlike the decolonization movements of the Cold War era, this wave is being driven by opportunistic illiberal regimes that exploit anti-colonial rhetoric to advance their own geopolitical agendas—and, paradoxically, their own colonial-style land grabs.

The basic aims of the decolonization movement during the Cold War were twofold: securing national independence for countries colonized by the West and preserving sovereignty for postcolonial countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, whether through armed struggle or ideological diplomacy. Focused on ending the Vietnam War and fighting white minority rule in southern Africa, the movement quickly became the cause célèbre of the international left.

Despite divergent views on economic and social issues, the movement’s proponents coalesced around a central belief that Western imperialism, particularly the U.S. variant, singlehandedly held back the advancement and development of what was then known as the third world—ignoring the fact that many anti-colonial movements often had their own internal issues of graft and corruption. Disheartened by the West’s history of imperialism, many on the left even embraced authoritarian leaders, such as Zimbabwe’s anti-colonial freedom fighter-turned-despot Robert Mugabe and even former North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung.

Today, the anti-colonial movement is less about securing independence for the few remaining colonial outposts or debating the proper developmental pathway for countries in the global south. Bolstered by powerful state-backed media corporations in the capitals of authoritarian states, the current movement is largely a Trojan horse for the advancement of global illiberalism and a revision of the international rules-based order.

Authoritarian governments in Eurasia have taken their influence operations to social media, where they hope to inflame grievances—possibly into actual conflicts—to divert the attention of Washington and its allies from areas of strategic importance. This is the case for not only Azerbaijan, but also for China in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as Iran, which provides financial support to anti-Israel protest groups in the United States.

But more than any other country, it is Russia that is attempting to ride the resurgent anti-colonial wave and position itself as a leading voice of the global south. Russian leadership describes itself as the vanguard of the “global majority” and claims to be leading “the objective process of building a more just multipolar world.”

After his visit to Pyongyang in June, Putin wrote in North Korea’s main newspaper that the United States seeks to impose a “global neo-colonial dictatorship” on the world. In the United States, several Russians alleged by prosecutors to be intelligence agents have been accused of funneling financial support to an anti-colonial Black socialist group to promote pro-Russian narratives and justify Russia’s illegal military actions in Ukraine. And in regard to New Caledonia, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova fanned the flames when she said in May that the tensions there stemmed “from the lack of finality in the process of its decolonization.”

Moscow’s primary stage to project itself as the spearhead of a new global anti-colonial movement is Africa. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union provided ideological and military support to numerous national liberation movements and anti-colonial struggles in sub-Saharan Africa on the grounds of proletarian internationalism and socialist solidarity. According to a declassified 1981 CIA report, Namibia’s SWAPO guerilla group received nearly all of its arms from the Soviet Union, and Soviet military personnel trained South African anti-apartheid guerrillas in Angola-based training camps. Moscow also trained and educated a large number of African independence fighters and anti-colonial rebels at Communist Party schools and military institutes back in the Soviet Union.

This legacy of Soviet internationalism and socialist goodwill generated lingering sympathy for the Kremlin, and Russia continues to be widely perceived as a torchbearer of anti-colonial justice and national independence on the continent, particularly in the Francophone Sahel region. Before his death in August 2023, former Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin blamed instability in the Sahel on Western interventionism, saying, “The former colonizers are trying to keep the people of African countries in check. In order to keep them in check, the former colonizers are filling these countries with terrorists and various bandit formations. Thus creating a colossal security crisis.”

Despite Moscow’s own imperialist legacy and its current war of recolonization in Ukraine, Russia is increasingly seen as an anti-Western stalwart in the Sahel and a key supporter of anti-French political movements. Kremlin-backed mercenaries from the Wagner Group’s successor, Africa Corps, have supplanted French security services as the primary counterinsurgency force for fragile West African governments. And in addition to the counter-insurgency operations, Russian mercenaries have provided personal protection for key African military and government leaders.

But the shift from French to Russian interventionism in the Sahel raises the question of just how much national sovereignty the governments in the affected countries have.

Military juntas in West Africa exploit anti-French sentiments among the general public in order to obscure the fact that they are merely relying on a different foreign state for regime security, effectively trading one colonialist power for another. Most importantly for the juntas, unlike the French, the Russian security forces have no qualms about violently cracking down on political dissent and committing war crimes. For example, in late March 2022, Russian mercenaries assisted the Malian military in summarily executing around 300 civilians in the Malian town of Moura, according to Human Rights Watch.

With its colonial baggage, France has struggled to penetrate pro-Russian propaganda in its former African colonies. For instance, Afrique Média, an increasingly popular Cameroon-based television network, often echoes the Kremlin’s positions on international events. In April 2022, Afrique Média promoted a Russia-produced propaganda video that depicted a Russian mercenary escaping his African jihadi captors and then revealing U.S, and French flags behind an Islamic State flag, suggesting that these Western countries are supporting religious extremists.

Russia’s anti-colonial crusade belies its efforts to advance its own political and economic interests. Moscow’s efforts in Africa are borne from a desire to undercut Western influence in the region; shore up diplomatic support for itself in multilateral forums, such as the United Nations; and reinstate Russia’s reputation as a global superpower. Moscow may also seek to secure access to Africa’s vast natural resources, including criterial minerals, and take advantage of illicit networks, such as illegal gold mining, to circumvent international sanctions and fund its war in Ukraine.

Authoritarian regimes, including those in Russia, China, and Azerbaijan, would not exploit anti-colonial rhetoric if it did not continue to resonate in the global south. Long-standing economic disparities with the global north and painful histories of Western interventionism, especially the post-9/11 U.S. wars in the Middle East, have fostered sympathy for revisionist authoritarian regimes. The current humanitarian crisis in Gaza has heightened feelings of Western hypocrisy among some commentators and public figures in the global south.

As Kenyan journalist Rasna Warah explains, “There is deep sympathy and support [in the West] for Ukrainians who are being bombed and made homeless by Russia but Palestinians being killed and being denied food and water are seen as deserving of their fate.”

Therefore, it is crucial for Western governments to acknowledge the shortcomings of the current international liberal order to governments in the global south, rather than attempting to gaslight them into believing that it is equitable and just. The Western-led international order has a long history of violence and instability in the developing world. The trauma of Western imperialism and colonialism should not be forgotten but rather reworked into developmental programs that help to build robust institutions and infrastructure in the global south.

For example, Germany’s joint declaration with Namibia in 2021, which acknowledged the genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples between 1904 and 1908, committed $1.2 billion over the next 30 years to funding aid projects in Namibia, which are more likely to have a long-lasting positive effect on the development of Namibian institutions than individual financial handouts to descendants of colonial-era violence.

In the near term, the United States and its Western allies should actively counter propaganda from Baku, Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing that seeks to portray these nations as free from interventionist pasts. Exposing their disinformation campaigns in the global south—starting with labeling social media accounts linked to state-run media—could help to alert the public to the presence of bad-faith actors, who exploit genuine anti-colonial grievances for their own political and economic goals.

While the Soviets were certainly no saints, there was a genuine internationalist and collectivist spirit in their interactions with the Cold War anti-colonial movement. The same cannot be said for Russia today.

[ladywaffles]

16 + icemav for the drunken confession prompts!!!

okay so this one kinda ran away from me, oops! thank you for playing <3

"This is not a dream, I think. In my dreams, we're usually kissing."

send me a pairing and a number!

It lasts sixteen months.

They run out the clock as best as they can, and then they put overtime on the clock and run that down too.

But Ice has always wanted, and then wanted more, and TOPGUN was only ever a stop on the way to the top for him.

He understood that going in; their time was limited. Maverick has never shied away from a challenge, though, especially one that Iceman placed in front of him.

Create a life that makes Iceman want to stop, for him. Make a place that Iceman won’t want to leave, when the time comes.

(It will be many years down the line when he finds out, but Maverick was almost successful in his attempt. It is only the decades they have behind them, spent together, that stops this from hurting.)

So Ice’s time at TOPGUN comes to an end. It’s almost a joke, really; Maverick’s track record of relationships in Miramar is oh-for-two. Charlie had packed off for D.C. before Ice rotated back stateside. Maverick was too burned by the experience to even think about approaching Ice in any way that hinted of romance.

Sixteen months of flying circles around hotshot flyboys with Ice on his wing, the wide expanse of the Pacific stretching out in front of him. He really couldn’t hope for anything better. He only wishes he had more time.

They spend their last night of freedom—Ice’s second-to-last night onshore—on a pub crawl that Mav will be feeling in the morning. He won’t regret it, but even as he matches Ice shot for shot, because Ice is an all-American poster boy but he hates beer more than anything, Maverick wants to slow down and take in these last memories of Ice at his side. They serve at the pleasure of the Navy, and only God knows when the brass will smile on them and send down orders to reunite Maverick Mitchell and the Iceman, the only fighter pilots on active duty to score air-to-air kills since the end of the Vietnam War.

They close out a bar on the other side of town, and then because it’s Ice’s last night and Ice gets what he wants, no matter how stupid Maverick thinks it might be, they end up on a picnic bench in some park, looking up at the admittedly bright stars.

“Do you ever miss it?” Ice asks.

“Hmm?” Maverick’s head is still fuzzy, his cheeks still warm with all the alcohol rushing through his body.

“The stars,” Ice says, staring up. “When you’re here, don’t you miss it? When you were out on the Enterprise. I swear I used to go up on deck every night just to look at the stars.”

Maverick shrugs. “They’re mostly the same, no matter where you go. Maybe if I crossed the line and the constellations changed, I’d care more, but stars are stars.”

“Huh.”

“Do you?” Maverick turns to look at Ice, who seems to be tracing out lines in his mind, vectors towards true north, or maybe the outline of Cygnus.

“Yeah. Where I grew up, the light pollution was so bad, you could barely make out the North Star. The city was just too bright. The first time I was on a carrier, and I saw the stars, what they actually looked like… Man, Slider must’ve thought I was dumb, walking around with my mouth gaping open like a fish. Nearly ate shit when we were heading back to bunk because my head was in the clouds, I hit the knee-knockers. He didn’t let that one go for weeks.”

“At least you’ll get to see them again,” Maverick tells him.

Stay, his heart begs him to say. Stay here, with me. I’m not the starry night sky, but can’t I be enough? Please, let me be enough to keep you.

“Yeah,” Ice muses. “I almost wish I could take you with me.”

“What?” Maverick lets out a shaky laugh.

Ice smiles, that small little thing that he does whenever he’s amused, the one that Maverick learned to look for early on. A blink-and-you-miss it grin, a glimpse into the real man behind the Iceman.

“What? Was it not obvious? You need me to say it out loud?”

“I don’t—”

“I’m gonna miss you, Mitchell,” Ice says easily. He doesn’t look in Maverick’s direction, even as he continues. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do out there without you on my wing. It’s been so long since I— since I flew without you right there, annoying me over the radio. What am I gonna do without you chattering in my ear?”

“I’m sure you’ll find another flyboy out there to talk your ear off,” Maverick replies, falling into the banter. It’s not what he expected from Ice, but maybe the alcohol had more of an effect on Ice than he thought it did.

“I would stay here, if I could,” Ice admits.

You can! Maverick wants to cry. You can stay here! Fly with me! Stay with me!

“I’m gonna be a tough act to follow,” he says instead.

“You sure are,” Ice agrees.

“You can’t stay here if you want that promotion, though. That’s what you want.”

“What I want,” Ice repeats. “You know, these last few weeks, I wanted nothing more than this.”

Ice looks at him now, a blush on his cheeks from the chill bite of the midnight air and the alcohol coursing through his veins.

Maverick furrows his brow. “This?”

“Just sitting here, taking a moment to enjoy your company. Don’t let it get to your head, Mitchell, I’m still the better pilot, but you’re a good man. Everyone’s wanted something from me these last few weeks, and I was worried I wouldn’t get a chance to say it.”

Maverick cracks a grin. “You were thinking about me?”

Ice groans. “Of course that’s what you latch onto.”

“Iceman, thinking about little ol’ me!” Maverick jumps up and yells it out to the world, teasing Ice. It’s the only way he can think to make it hurt a little less, that it took Ice this long to say anything. “I win!”

“This isn’t what I was dreaming of,” Ice deadpans.

Maverick turns to him, breathless. That… changes things. “You were dreaming of me?” He sits back down next to Ice, a little closer than before. Their knees are knocking together.

Ice stares down at the ground, focusing on the grass with deadly intent.

“Yes. Yeah,” he breathes out.

“And is this like your dream?” Maverick asks gently. “Is this the dream you wanted?”

“This is not a dream, I think,” Ice answers in a soft voice. “In my dreams, by now, we’re usually kissing.”

And Ice looks up at him, his heart fully bared and placed in Maverick’s hands, his eyes full of hope and fear in equal measures, and Maverick aches.

“I would’ve said something sooner,” Ice continues, “But I couldn’t. I didn’t want to risk it. It took me all night to work up the courage to say something, and all that alcohol to pry it from my own damn self, but the only thing I’ve wanted to do all night is just say it and take you back to mine, so I could have you, just for the one night—”

Maverick cuts him off with a hand on his jaw. He can feel the flush in Ice’s cheeks, the hot blush that rises to his skin. “Ice, it’s okay,” he says.

And slowly, so Ice knows that it’s coming, so Ice can stop him if he wants to (even though that might break Maverick’s heart, and maybe Ice’s too, if he’s understanding this right), Maverick presses his lips to Ice’s. He feels the hot puff of Ice’s sigh against his lips, then the hard tug of Ice’s hands on his hips as he deepens the kiss.

Maverick willingly follows where Ice leads him, because his wingman has never led him astray. He ends up straddled across Ice’s lap, hanging on desperately as Ice kisses him with a passion he’s never felt from anyone else.

It’s only when he can’t breathe anymore that he stops, leaning his forehead against Ice’s, his weight falling back on his haunches. Ice’s hands steady him as they breathe together, big, heaving sighs like they’d just done the thousand-yard dash.

Stay, Maverick’s heart chants. Stay with me, don’t leave. Ask me to go with you, and I will. Just say the words.

“You have to go,” Maverick says sadly. He’s sobering up faster than he ever has before, realizing that there are a scant few hours left between now and when Ice goes back to sea.

“I have to go,” Ice repeats. He presses a light kiss to Maverick’s lips.

I’m sorry.

“I’ll be here,” he says.

Come back to me. I can’t lose you too.

Maverick kisses him again, and again, and again, to drive the point home.

“I’ll come back,” Ice replies, understanding.

The timer on Ice’s last day has already started ticking. Maverick is surprised more than anything when Ice drives them back to his housing, seven hours after they first set out on their pub crawl, and opens the passenger door for Maverick. He leads him into his bedroom and holds him for the rest of the night, falling asleep just as the sun starts to peek through the blinds.

Maverick doesn’t want to let go, but he won’t stop Ice. He commits Ice to memory as best he can, and when the time comes, he kisses Ice hard, pouring sixteen months of wanting and desire and love into it.

Ice meets him with the same fervor, the same built-up emotion flowing out of him, a mirror image of his own feelings reflected back to him.

They’re wingmen, after all.

[usafphantom2]

The Collings Foundation F-100F at the 2024 Wings Over Houston Airshow, worked on and flow by the Vietnam War Flight Museum. Definitely a highlight of the show. 56-3844 N26AZ

@pressxtolive via X

[girlactionfigure]

The #US arms embargo on #Israel, which began at its inception in ‘48, remained until after Israel’s brilliant military victory in the ’67 #SixDayWar. After that, the U.S. finally realized the #Arab states had fully aligned with the #Soviets and that Israel could be a key U.S. ally in the #ColdWar.

But the #American decision was not based on Israel’s #military victory alone.

You see, the #Israeli triumph in the Six Day War was no accident. It was the result of Israel’s obsessively careful planning and some major #intelligence coups regarding the most advanced #Soviet military equipment.

The following reads like a #SpyNovel, but the story is entirely true.

In 1963, the Cold War was at its hottest. A few months earlier, in October 1962, the world came to the brink of total #nuclear annihilation during the 13-day #CubanMissileCrisis standoff.

Then, in June of 1963, #JFK gave his most famous anti-#communist speech (known as the “Ich bin ein Berliner” (“I am a Berliner”) speech) in West #Germany to an adoring crowd of nearly half a million West #Germans.

And then the biggest shock of all that rocked the entire world. On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Soviet sympathizer #LeeHarveyOswald. The world changed forever.

Meanwhile, in Israel, Meir Amit became the new director of #ShinBet (internal security) and #Mossad (foreign intelligence). He took over at a time when Israel was seen by the U.S. (and the whole world) as a country living on borrowed time.

Sure, the Israelis managed a modern-day miracle by fighting off five invading Arab armies to a stalemate and #armistice in 1949; but the country was still technically at war with all of them, and Israel remained massively outnumbered and was increasingly finding itself massively outgunned.

Throughout much of the 1950s and 1960s, the Arab countries turned to their new best friends in the #SovietUnion. 

The Soviets were more than happy to continue expanding their sphere of influence in the #oil-rich #MiddleEast and, therefore, aggressively armed and trained the Arab militaries with some of their most advanced weaponry.

Most concerningly, the Soviets had begun delivering and training Arab fighter pilots on their newest #supersonic strike aircraft – the MiG-21 (below).

Every Western nation, including the U.S., was completely in the dark about the capabilities of this cutting-edge #Russian aircraft and were fearful of the jet the Russians called the “most advanced strike aircraft in the world.”

Amit made a bold – some said insane – decision. Israel was going to steal a Soviet MiG-21.

Shortly after the U.S. bombed North #Vietnam for the first time in February of 1964, Israel was focused on gathering intelligence on Arab pilots charged with flying the MiG-21 for Egypt, Iraq, and Syria.

Israeli intelligence learned that one of the #Iraqi #AirForce pilots was a #Maronite #Christian Arab. Israel knew the Maronites had frequently been subject to #persecution in #Muslim-dominated countries like Iraq. Perhaps he could be turned.

The Mossad sent a beautiful, intelligent, and lively American-born woman to #Baghdad to try to establish contact with the Maronite pilot whose name was Munir Redfa. She met Redfa at a party, and Redfa was infatuated with her immediately.

Not knowing the Mossad agent’s identity, Redfa told the #beautiful #woman with whom he was clearly smitten that he was “in violent disagreement with the current war being waged by his government against the minority #Kurdish tribesmen in northern Iraq.” He was especially disgusted that he, a persecuted minority himself, was being asked to bomb the defenseless #Kurds.

He continued sharing his gripes against the Iraqi government including his shock at the imprisonment of some of his best friends who were Maronites. He also shared that he was being mistreated “because he was a Christian” and had been “passed over as commander” of his squadron, was kept stationed far from his home in Baghdad, and was permitted to fly “only with small fuel tanks” – a restriction he said was placed only on Christian pilots.

Redfa went even further, speaking in a way most Arabs dared not speak in public. He confessed he had a “sneaking admiration” for the Israelis who had managed to fight off five Arab armies despite being “so few against so many #Moslems.”

The Mossad agent knew she had her mark, and she maintained her relationship with him. It turned out Redfa had a wife and several children, but he still carried on a several-years-long intimate relationship with the Mossad agent.

Then, in July of 1966, the Mossad agent suggested that she and Redfa go on a trip together to #Europe. Redfa excitedly accepted the invitation.

After a few days in Europe, the Mossad agent suggested Redfa “fly to Israel with her. She had friends there who might be of service to him.”

Seeing the expression on Redfa’s face change from joy to confusion, the Mossad agent reached into her bag and pulled out a brand-new passport and tickets to Israel.

The jig was up. Redfa knew the woman he fell for was an Israeli spy. But, instead of being upset by this revelation, he was intrigued once he realized the Israelis (for whom he had “sneaking admiration”) were ready to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

The Israelis would give Redfa a way out of bombing innocent Kurds, they would pay him $1 million, they would sneak his entire family out of Iraq, and they would give him and his entire family Israeli citizenship, a home, and a job for life. Redfa agreed.

Mordecai Hod, commander of the Israeli Air Force, met with Redfa and discussed the plan for getting the MiG-21 out of Iraq and into Israel.

Hod showed Redfa how to fly a zig-zagging route that would allow him to avoid both Iraqi and Jordanian radar. It was a long way from Baghdad – around 560 miles – and Redfa would need nerves of steel to pull off his mission.

Redfa was a confident man. In this scheme, Redfa saw a way to provide his family with much better, freer lives. So, he told Hod, “I will bring you the plane.”

The date of the heist was set: August 16, 1966. Redfa followed the planned zig-zag pattern, but suddenly a ground crew member realized Redfa was heading way too far west.

Frantically, he radioed Redfa and ordered him to turn around immediately.

Redfa did not respond.

The ground crew warned, if Redfa did not turn around instantly, they would shoot him down!

Redfa stayed silent and kept flying.

Finally, he left Iraqi airspace and took a single breath.

Shortly thereafter, once Israeli radar picked up his plane (still hundred of miles away), the Israelis sent a squad of IAF Mirage fighter jets to escort him the remainder of the way to a base in the #NegevDesert.

After he landed, some of Redfa’s family was already there to greet him. The rest of his family was being smuggled across the #Iranian border by Kurdish guerillas. Safely in pre-#Islamic #Revolution #Iran, they were able to fly to Israel to be with the rest of their family.

Israeli intelligence had completed its mission and now had access to the most powerful weapon in the Arab armies’ possession.

Quickly, Western nations like the U.S., #France, and #Britain were all contacting Israel pressing for a chance to see the MiG-21 themselves. Every one of them was floored that this little nation, whose days were presumably numbered, had pulled off such an incredible intelligence feat. Meanwhile, none of these great Western powers had ever before had access to a MiG-21.

The Soviets, however, were furious; and they threatened the Israelis that they faced destruction if they did not get their fighter jet back.

Staggering the U.S., France, and Britain, with its response, Israel did not blink.

"No," they told the Russians. They would not “return” the jet.

Israel knew it was under constant threat of annihilation, and it was only a matter of time before the Arabs staged another massive invasion. The Israelis felt their only means of survival was to ensure they had better intelligence and were better prepared than their enemies.

On the other hand, the Israelis were happy to oblige the #Western powers, but they felt it wise to let things calm down a bit first.

After a few months passed, Israel “loaned” the MiG-21 to the U.S. and permitted them to conduct testing – all of which proved a boon to America’s strategic capabilities.

Meanwhile, the strategic value to Israel would be obvious a mere nine months later when, on April 7, 1967, Israeli jets got in a #dogfight with Syrian pilots flying MiG-21s.

The Israelis shot down six Syrian MiG-21s without losing a single plane of their own; and in the Six Day War two months later, the IAF took advantage of its overwhelming air superiority over the Syrian and Egyptian MiG-21s to carry them to a quick and decisive victory that shocked the entire world.

These combined events led the U.S. to realize that the tiny country of Israel had developed into a Western democracy with a formidable military and a daring intelligence apparatus that was right in the heart of the Middle East.

No longer was Israel seen as “the little country that could.”

Instead, Israel became one of America’s most important allies during the Cold War.

Captain Allen

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 30 January 1968, the North Vietnamese military and the National Liberation Front (NLF) in the South launched the Tet offensive – a major operation against US and ARVN (pro-US South Vietnamese) forces to coincide with Vietnamese New Year. While the offensive was a tactical failure and they suffered massive casualties, it did show the public in the US that their military propaganda stating that the war was nearly over and that the NLF had almost been defeated was a lie. This helped swing public sentiment, including amongst US troops, against their involvement in the region. Our podcast episodes 10-11 are about the anti-war movement amongst US service personnel: https://workingclasshistory.com/2018/08/06/e10-the-gi-resistance-in-vietnam-part-1/ Pictured: NLF fighters https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2198451077006697/?type=3

[dailyanarchistposts]

Yesterday an active-duty Air Force soldier named Aaron Bushnell self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy. His last words were “Free Palestine.” Of the cops responding to the scene, some pointed guns at him while others sought to extinguish the flames; the image of a cop pointing a gun at a man on fire is the most American thing I have ever seen.

On June 11th, 1963, a Buddhist monk named Thích Quảng Đức set himself on fire in Ho Chi Minh City (then Saigon). In South Vietnam, Buddhists were an oppressed majority, ruled by a Catholic minority—the Buddhist flag was banned, Catholics were chosen for all the better jobs, and protesting Buddhists were being murdered in the streets or sent to concentration camps.

So Thích set himself on fire and calmly burned in front of hundreds of spectators on a public street. There’s a film of it, and I’m not big into “watch people die on film,” but some moments in history are worth seeing. He didn’t cry out; he just sat in lotus position, engulfed in flames. Afterwards, the cops tried to take his remains, but thousands of angry protestors took him back, and they re-cremated him for a proper funeral. His heart didn’t burn. It solidified in the fire. Today it is today a sacred relic. I have no explanation for this.

Other monks in Vietnam followed his example. By the end of the year, the CIA led a coup and toppled the Catholic dictator of the country. This isn’t “the US being good,” mind you, they’d been propping the asshole up in the first place. Thích’s sacrifice is often credited as what brought down that regime.

Two years later, the first American set herself on fire in protest of the Vietnam war. Alice Herz was a German Jew, 82 years old. She’d seen some shit. She’d fought for feminism in 1910s Germany, helped bring about the Weimar Republic, fled Germany to France only to end up in a Nazi concentration camp. Survived. Made it to the US. Lived in Detroit and became a Unitarian. Then one day she wrote a letter about how horrible the Vietnam war was, went out to the street, and set herself on fire. She wasn’t the last. In South Vietnam and the US alike, Buddhists and Quakers and Catholics set themselves on fire in service of the same cause.

When a 16 year old Catholic named Ronald Brazee set himself on fire in October 1967, a Catholic Worker named Father Daniel Berrigan wrote a poem for him called “In the Land of Burning Children”

He was still living a month later I was able to gain access to him I smelled the odor Of burning flesh And I understood anew What I had seen in North Vietnam I felt that my senses Had been invaded in a new way I now understood the power of death in the modern world I knew I must speak and act against death because this boy’s death was being multiplied a thousandfold

The Dutch resistance to the Nazi Occupation was characterized by a unique nonviolence, focusing primarily on hiding Jewish people and acts of sabotage. This wasn’t necessarily an ethical or even strategic decision, but one forced onto them by circumstance—according to one resistance fighter, since the Dutch government maintained a firearms registry before the invasion, the Nazis were able to acquire that list and go door-to-door to disarm the Dutch population.

But what the Dutch resistance lacked in firearms it made up for in mass participation. Roughly a million people were involved in sheltering people, secreting people away, striking, or helping those who were doing such things. The two most active groups were churches and communist organizations.

The Nazis responded with collective punishment. The occupiers cut off food supplies inside the Netherlands, blockading the roads between farms and cities. The entire population of the country went hungry during what’s called the Hunger Winter of 1944-1945. Between 18-22,000 people starved to death. Four-and-a-half million people were living off of something like 600 calories a day each. A whole generation of children born or living at the time suffered lifelong ailments. Audrey Hepburn grew up in Occupied Netherlands (and as a preteen performed ballet to raise money to support the resistance). Her time in the hunger winter left her with lifelong ailments like anemia.

In case the parallel I’m drawing is not obvious, Gaza is currently being starved by the Israeli government.

Quite notably, quite worth understanding in the modern context, the Hunger Winter persisted despite relief efforts until the Allied forces liberated the Netherlands from the fascists in May 1945.

Aaron Bushnell was twenty-five years old when he died. He sent a message to media outlets before his act: “Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people.”

He posted on Facebook: “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

His last words, engulfed in flames, were “Free Palestine.”

I know that what stopped US involvement in Vietnam was the military victory of the Vietnamese people against US forces, combined with the direct action action efforts of the American Left that made the war harder to execute. I know what ended the Nazi occupation was the Allied invasion. I know what stopped legal chattel slavery in the US was the deadliest war in our country’s history. I also know that what stopped Jim Crow was… nothing. Nothing has stopped it, not completely. The long, hard, thankless work of a combination of reform and direct action has mitigated its effects somewhat.

I can’t say I think others should follow Aaron’s example. I doubt he wanted anyone to. An act like this needs attention, not imitation. What we can follow is the moral courage. What we need to decide for ourselves is how to act, not whether or not to act. I don’t have any answers for me, and I don’t have any answers for you.

I can say that he shouldn’t be forgotten, that he ought to be remembered when we ask ourselves if we have the courage to act.

I can also say that it takes an incredible number of people doing an incredible variety of work to effect change. That poet, Father Daniel Berrigan, did a lot more than write poetry. He and others in the broader Catholic Left raided draft offices and burned records, directly impacting the US’s ability to send young men off to die in an imperialist war. A group of people who came out of their movement (but were primarily Jewish and/or secular) raided an FBI office and uncovered the spying and disruption that was done of the peace movement under the name COINTELPRO.

A vibrant and militant counterculture sprang up, drawing Americans away from the clutches of conservative propaganda. They built nationwide networks of mutual aid and they helped draft dodgers escape the country.

An awful lot of American soldiers in Vietnam directly defected, enough that “fragging” entered the English language as a verb for throwing a grenade at your commanding officer.

As for the Hunger Winter, it was not ended until the Nazi party was ended through force of arms, but its worst effects were alleviated by the bravery and thankless work of uncountable people who cobbled together meals from nothing or who organized to bring food aid in across German lines.

In the US now we’re seeing a growing movement opposed to our country’s collaboration with the genocidal regime in Israel.

It’s impossible to know if it will be enough. When you pile straw onto the proverbial camel, you never know which straw will be the last. We just keep piling.

And in the meantime, we remember names like Aaron Bushnell, Ronald Brazee, Alice Herz, and Thích Quảng Đức.

[lboogie1906]

Colonel Dr. Guion Stewart Bluford Jr., Ph.D. (born November 22, 1942) (Col, USAF, Ret.) is an aerospace engineer, retired Air Force officer and fighter pilot, and former NASA astronaut, who is the first African American and the second person of African descent to go to space. Before becoming an astronaut, he was an officer in the Air Force, where he remained while assigned to NASA, rising to the rank of colonel. He participated in four Space Shuttle flights (1983-92). In 1983, as a member of the crew of the Orbiter Challenger on the mission STS-8, he became the first African American in space as well as the second person of African ancestry in space, after Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez.

Born in Philadelphia, he graduated from Overbrook High School. He received a BS from Pennsylvania State University, an MS from the Air Force Institute of Technology, a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering with a minor in Laser Physics, again from AFIT, and an MBA from the University of Houston–Clear Lake. He has attended the Wharton School of Business.

He attended pilot training at Williams Air Force Base and received his pilot wings. He then went to F-4C combat crew training in Arizona and Florida and was assigned to the 557th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. He flew 144 combat missions, 65 of which were over North Vietnam.

He was chosen to become a NASA astronaut in August 1979 out of thousands of possible candidates. His technical assignments have included working with Space Station operations, the Remote Manipulator System, Spacelab systems and experiments, Space Shuttle systems, payload safety issues, and verifying flight software in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory and the Flight Systems Laboratory. He was a mission specialist on STS-8, STS-61-A, STS-39, and STS-53. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #omegapsiphi

[labbaik-ya-hussain-as]

BREAKING: HAMAS LEADER OFFICIAL STATEMENT

Khaled Meshaal:

If the Algerians, Afghans and Vietnamese listened to the advocates of defeatism who demand that we surrender, Algeria, Afghanistan and Vietnam would not have been liberated from colonialism and occupation.

The Al-Aqsa flood inflicted on the occupation psychologically, militarily, and intelligence-wise, and this defeat will be complete soon, God willing.

Oct 7th proved that the terrorist Zionist occupation can be defeated, and it has awakened awareness throughout the world about the justice of the Palestine issue.

The occupation appeared for its barbaric nature when turned into a raging bull that brutalized innocent people and targeted schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, and all aspects of life in our beloved Strip, Gaza.

Why does the Arab & Islamic nation not unite around the resistance? Western countries also rallied to support the Zionist occupation.

After 49 years of terrorist Zionist aggression, the resistance is fine, despite the martyrs among the fighters and some leaders, but our tunnels, ammunition and weapons are still intact, and we are still able to maneuver, launch missiles, and target invading tanks.

We follow the example of our noble Messenger, when he was besieged in the Battle of the Trench and heralding the conquest of the lands of the Romans and Persia.

Our heroic fighters turned tanks that cost millions and are equipped with the latest technology into a “farce,” with a small package attached to their back door and killing the cowards inside.

Hamas leaders lost dozens of their families during the aggression, and we bid farewell to the acting Speaker of the Legislative Council, Dr. Habib, the martyr Ahmed Bahr, and the representative in the Legislative Council, the martyr sister, Jamila Al-Shanti.

The terrorist Zionist occupation failed to achieve its declared goals of eliminating Hamas and displacing the entire population of the Gaza Strip, and the majority of the population of the north remained in the north despite everything that our great steadfast north is exposed to.

Some Western politicians are discussing Gaza after Hamas, and I say to them, save your time, your imagination, and your dreams, and within years, God willing, you will discuss the situation of the region after “Israel.”

We reject the participation of any international or Arab forces in the administration of Gaza, and all these plans will be trampled upon by our heroes in the resistance, led by our victorious Al-Qassam Brigades.

On the first day, we expressed readiness to release detained civilians. Because the objectives of the battle did not include taking them; But the circumstances of the battle, after the collapse of the occupation's Gaza division, led to this, and we released a number of detainees.

When we saw the brutality of the terrorist aggression, we said we must run this card; And to serve the civilians in Gaza and relieve them.

The truce achieves the release of children and women from Zionist occupation prisons, a temporary cessation of aggression, and humanitarian relief for Gaza.

The temporary truce sparked controversy within the entity about the controversy of the war that wants to eliminate Hamas, and then they are forced to negotiate with it indirectly to exchange detained children and women.

Gaza must be supported militarily, and the nation must not be spectators, and must contribute to the outcome of the battle.

We thank everyone who participated in supporting Gaza militarily, and everyone who asks us about the extent of our satisfaction with the participation of some parties, we answer the question: What did you participate in?

Gaza must be supported financially and humanitarianly,the political, popular and public pressure movement must be escalated to stop the aggression.

We showed Israel as it is,weak as a spider’s web, in need of someone to protect it, in addition to its illusory ability to protect others or fight wars on their behalf