Castle Report

The Castle Report

• Why Neo-Cons Hate Trump
  Darrell Castle talks about Present Trump's trip to the Middle East and how it reflects Trump's vision of the world --- how it can be more peaceful and prosperous for everyone. Transcription / Notes WHY NEO-CONS HATE TRUMP Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 16th day of May in the year of our Lord 2025. I will be talking about President Trump’s trip to the Middle East which should be finishing just about as I record this report. The trip reflects Trump’s vision of the world and how it can be more peaceful, and prosperous for everyone, in other words the anti-neo-con view of the world. President Trump is currently on a Presidential trip to several Middle East countries including Saudi Arabia, his first stop, and then several of the Gulf Arab States including Qatar, the second stop. While he was in Riyadh, he spoke to the new leader of Syria which is interesting because until the fall of Assad that man was listed as a wanted international terrorist. Apparently Mr. Erdogan of Turkey joined in the conversation by phone and lobbied Trump to lift the sanctions on Syria which Trump agreed to do. His reception by the Middle East countries has been phenomenal and met with similar joy as his election was met with joy by his supporters. That joy is in reality hope for what could be and hopefully will be with the Trump Presidency. When Air Force One entered Saudi air space six Saudi jet fighters came out and flew escort for the descent into Riyadh. The Crown Prince, Bin Salman came out to personally greet his arrival something he publicly did not do when President Biden visited. A long purple carpet stretched from the airplane steps to the waiting limousines while American music played from loudspeakers. The Saudis even rigged up a mobile McDonalds restaurant on the trailer of a large truck in reference to the President’s legendary fondness for McDonalds cheeseburgers. Trump seems to have an affinity for Middle East people and especially their leaders because he shares a few things in common with them. He doesn’t drink and he does not condemn their culture and way of life. Let me pause here for a moment and give a little history to illustrate my point. First we have George H.W. Bush’s war to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait with its “this aggression will not stand rhetoric.” Then we have 8 years of Bill Clinton’s no fly zone over Iraq with its starvation of hundreds of thousands, allegedly. We then follow that with 8 years of George W. Bush’s Global War on Terror with its invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. We follow that with 8 years of Barack Obama’s Afghanistan the good war as opposed to Iraq the bad war. Donald Trump comes in and tries to extricate himself from Afghanistan but Joe Biden finally does it, albeit with an extreme cost. Joe Biden almost immediately becomes embroiled in a European war between Ukraine and Afghanistan so it’s basically been a 25-year struggle of war which means killing, dying, and total destruction. The leaders of the Middle East apparently see this man Trump with his prosperity instead of war rhetoric and they like it and are hopeful. His statements before the trip reflected the new attitude and purpose of the trip. He said he wanted to make new deals for peace and profit and that went over especially well in the Saudi Kingdom. Quote from the President, “a land of peace, safety, harmony, opportunity, innovation, and achievement right here in the Middle East is within our grasp.” That was apparently music to the ears of Bin Salman and when you think about it’s hard for me to find fault with that ambition. Perhaps Trump’s joyous reception is because his approach to foreign policy in general and the Middle East in particular, in contrast to all those presidents I just mentioned, is not ideological. To illustrate here’s a quote from the President that was apparently well received in Saudi ears, “too many American presidents have been afflicted wi...
• When Politics Fails
  Darrell Castle talks about the use of politics to address the world's problems and how that use or lack of use, specifically regarding the disputes in the Middle East and in Ukraine, makes good political campaigning but fails to actually solve the problem. Transcription / Notes WHEN POLITICS FAILS Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday, the 9th day of May in the year of our Lord 2025. I will be talking about the use of politics to address the world’s problems and how that use repeatedly fails. Specifically, how the use or lack of use of politics to solve the disputes in the Middle East and in Ukraine make good political campaigning but when push comes to shove politics fails to solve the problems. The dictionary defines politics as: “the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power.” We might be able to glean something from that definition, but it really means that normally politics is a precursor to war rather than preventing war. This Report then is not really about politics but about war. Yes, I suppose you might be able to conclude that the Castle Report is a report on war and my opposition to it. Here is an analogy, your kid sister is waiting on the school bus to bring her home from school and some bully slaps her and runs away. When confronted the bully denies having anything to do with it but you know and everyone knows that he did it. Retaliation is therefore a must. That bully has to be shown that he cannot insult you and yours with impunity so you attack him when he is on the way home just as he did your sister. Does it end there, not likely. The bully approaches his friends for help and since his friends compete with you in local business they agree to supply the bully with people and weapons knowing that it will hurt you. The story just goes on and on without ceasing and when great nations are involved, great destruction results but also great profits for those who make the weapons. Those who make weapons and those who gain power because they are financed by those who make weapons seem to delight in war and want war to continue without end. They talk about peace but they never do anything to bring peace because they don’t really want it to happen. Politics fails then to solve the problems as it almost always does because politics is quite often false and meant to fail. I look at the Middle East, specifically Gaza, and I try to apply my human reasoning to what is going on there. The story seems to change week by week or even day by day and it becomes so murky that it is very hard to make sense of it. I suppose that is because war is idiotic and senseless so how can one make sense of the Middle East. The attacks of October 7th by Hamas against civilians in Israel killed about 1200 people most were innocent meaning non-military targets. In other words, the object was to create terror and you don’t do that by attacking military targets you do it by murdering women and children. That is what Hamas appears to have done, murder women and children. Stories of murder, rape and torture have been documented and if anything, they tend to downplay what really happened. I understand now that many more than 1200 were killed because many died of wounds later. I can’t blame Israel for retaliating with the purpose of not letting their people continue to be exposed and vulnerable to such attacks. The question becomes then; how much retaliation is enough and how much goes way beyond what can be justified as self-protection. I read many people who report the Israelis as genocidal maniacs because of their alleged intentional killing of Palestinian children, etc. What the reporters or commentators of that version don’t seem to realize is that is exactly what the Israelis accuse Hamas of doing. Those who support the Palestinians in the struggle say the...
• Anniversaries to Remember
  Today, Darrell Castle talks about remembering two anniversaries that are very significant in the history of the United States and the entire world. He shares how he believes they affect us today many years past those anniversaries, some of which he has personally experienced. Transcription / Notes: ANNIVERSARIES TO REMEMBER Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 2nd day of May in the year of our Lord 2025. I pause today to remember some anniversaries that are very significant in the history of the United States of America and of the entire world for that matter. In addition, I will endeavor to talk about the world as it appears to me today many years past those anniversaries some of which I have personally experienced. Next week the 8th of May is the 80th anniversary of the German surrender in WWll. I talk of that surrender today because it will happen before my next Castle Report. In Russia they remember what is called Victory in Europe Day on May 9th instead of the 8th. Russia usually has a military parade before the Kremlin in Moscow to memorialize the Great Patriotic War as they call it. However, they don’t memorialize what happened for 40 years after the war. The Stalinist show trials and millions of dead are nothing to celebrate I guess. From my American viewpoint I talk about the anniversary to honor those who served and especially those who died. This year, 11 world leaders have announced that they will attend the celebrations in Moscow including the Chinese Premier Xi but I haven’t heard of any Americans in attendance. If I were president I would be there or at least send a high-ranking representative. When General Eisenhower visited the airborne divisions on the night they were to jump into occupied France for the D-Day Invasion he said we may never see their like again and at this point I will say that he was right, at least I don’t see their like right now. Long before D-Day the Americans had some catching up to do because Germany had been fighting in Europe for two years and only Britain held them at bay across the Channel for two years alone. I risk being overly dramatic about the war against Germany but on the other hand, that would be very difficult to do since the courage and sacrifice of the men who fought the war is hard to exaggerate. For example, right after Pearl Harbor the 8th Air Force was formed and assigned to defeat the Luftwaffe which at that time was the best AirForce in the world and believed to be unstoppable. The 8th had 8 pilots and no airplanes at the time. Three years later by the D-Day landings the Luftwaffe had been driven from the sky, their experienced pilots were dead, and their country’s infrastructure was a pile of rubble. That happened because 55,000 young men gave their lives in the skies over Germany and France. A B-17 crew of 10 men had to complete 25 missions to get a break at home for a while. The average life expectancy was 15 missions and the chances of surviving 25 missions was 1 in 4. That improved when the P-51 Mustang fighter was available later because it had the range to escort the bombers all the way to Berlin and back. The Germans were fine warriors, dedicated men who fought hard for their country but on May 8th, 1945, they reached a state of unconditional surrender. Hitler was dead, apparently, and the head of state was Grand Admiral Carl Doenitz who had commanded the U-Boat campaign and later the German Navy. Doenitz sent General Afred Jodl to sign the German surrender and Jodl tried to time it so as many German soldiers as possible could make their way West and surrender to the Americans. Eisenhower told him that if he did not surrender immediately he would close the West to Germans and they would be left to the tender mercies of General Zhukov and the Red Army. No German wanted to be at the mercy of the Russians because of the merciless way they had conducted warfare inside Russia.