TOC Ready Room 23 Oct 2021: A ‘domestic terrorism’ retraction, and an emerging plan in Burma

Tonight: a walk-back from the school board association on its claim of “terror” threats from concerned parents; and a military campaign being prepared in Myanmar/Burma.

Parents as “domestic terrorists”; or, Not So Much.  Possibly the most striking thing about this is that it was only yesterday (Thursday, 21 October) that I was in a rather extended exchange on Twitter on this topic.  (This Ready Room edition is actually going up on 23 October, but was started Friday evening.)

I was looking for details about the “threats” allegedly being made by parents to school board members across America, which the media assure us prompted the Department of Justice to issue the 4 October memo vowing DOJ attention to this growing problem of violence and domestic terrorism.

China deploys submarine to Gulf of Aden

Chinese Song-class (Type 039) submarine. (Image via ChineseDefence.com)

New post up at Liberty Unyielding.  Enjoy!

Chinese power move in South China Sea: This is big

Mariners and the specialty mariner press know it’s big.  But mariners can’t fix this.  It will take national policies to fix it, and non-specialist citizens therefore need to understand its importance.

So, I reiterate: this is big.  After several years of preparations for this day (see, for example, here, here, and here), China has issued a unilateral order that foreign fishing vessels will have to obtain permits from China to fish in two-thirds of the South China Sea (SCS), an area in which China has long made excessive territorial claims.

Iranian navy takes another big step outward

A couple of years ago, the Iranian navy announced it had deployed a submarine to the Red Sea as part of its patrol force there.  We can’t be sure (from out here in Unclassified World) how many times submarines have deployed to the Red Sea since.  It’s probably not many; Iran does better now with her Russian-built, Kilo-class submarines than she used to, in terms of keeping them ready and deployable, but her performance still wouldn’t be called great.

It’s good enough, however, to back up last week’s announcement that the Kilo-class submarine Younus (also spelled Younes and Yunes in transliteration) was heading for a deployment around the Indian Ocean,

Rohani: A “moderate” game-changer?

A reader at The Optimistic Conservative pointed out that the media outlets hailing the election of Hassan Rohani, a so-called “moderate,” as the next president of Iran are the same outlets that consider the Tea Parties in America to be “radical.”

Given that most of these media outlets would agree that the clerical mullahs of Iran’s Guardian Council are radicals, the task for the Tea Parties seems clear: simply proclaim some among their membership to be “moderate.”  Send the moderate members to talk to the media and negotiate political issues.  The moderate Tea Partiers need never make a concession or give any ground; their only requirement is to serve as the self-proclaimed moderates of the Tea Party movement.  A few tweets would help too.  The media outlets should greet the Tea Party moderates with acclaim and be excited to see them elected to public office.

Election of a ringer?

If it works for the Iranian government, it should certainly work for the Tea Parties.  The fertile TOC comments section provided a preview for another significant point, which is