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WORLD PEACE FOREVER, IS IT POSSIBLE? YES, RIGHT NOW

PART 1, WHY OPEN THE SUBJECT OF WORLD PEACE NOW?

Russia reportedly lost over 30,000 soldiers killed on the Ukraine battlefield during December 2025.

While war rages on in the Middle East and Ukraine and numerous hot spots around the world, the American people gave President Trump a mandate for change in the U.S.; all kinds of change: immigration, crime, military, the economy, out of control government oversight and regulation, judicial lawfare, foreign affairs, it’s a long list.

The world is currently speculating about what President Trump will do about the two current combat zones, Ukraine and the Middle East.

While we are leaning forward as a nation, hopeful, optimistic, open to change and expecting another year of strong Trump leadership in 2026, why not add world peace to the to-do list? But, you ask, is it even possible to look for world peace before the Israeli and Ukraine wars are completely over? One approach would be to look beyond the two current conflicts and watch them just dissolve as part of a larger success story on peace.

There are actions and moments in time that are so momentous they can change the world. Unfortunately, they are nearly always seen in hindsight leaving us with a list of “what if” questions.

We are at one of those “moments” right now and it could actually become one of the most momentous in modern history.

While not necessarily seeking to become the “world leader”, President Trump’s recent actions have found him at least temporarily on that stage. Dring his first year he has been an active player in the resolution of eight world conflicts to include Israel/Hamas and Russia/Ukraine.

Then more recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos President Trump explained to the world that the U.S. is not interested in “invading Greenland” to add a 51^st state and 57,000 population, but rather create a critical strategic deterrent against the rapid advancement of Russian/Chinese control in the North American Arctic Region while European nations do nothing.

Trump followed Davos by chairing the signing ceremony for a Board of Peace with 59 nations’ leaders signing. Another “world Leader” action.

One can begin to conclude that those series of events have created the “moment” when he is currently the de-facto world leader.

All of that provides an opportunity to take an additional step forward toward world peace forever, a concept never before considered viable in the modern world.

World peace forever can and therefore should be launched now, now being 2026. If not, the concept execution could likely be lost forever.

The concept, in a single sentence, is to formerly align the military capabilities of world-wide nations into a single commitment to overwhelmingly counter the invasion of any kind by any other nation.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would never have happened. The invasion of Israel by Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran would never have happened.

No single nation or group of nations, for example the U.S. or NATO, will lead this multi-nation counter force. But it will take a de-facto world leader to develop the concept, sell the concept, and initially set it in motion, i.e. President TRUMP.

Why Trump? Because there simply is no other leader with the status to make it happen now.

PART 2, WHY IS THE WORLD IN AN UNSUSTAINABLE SITUATION NOW?

Seeking the means to achieve world peace is not a new subject; some background is appropriate to set the stage for a way forward. Let’s take a quick look back over the past 80 years at previous endeavors.

THE UNITED NATIONS:

In June 1941 representatives from thirteen nations (the U.S. was not included) met in London and signed the Declaration of St. James’s Palace expressing a vision for postwar world order. The next step was the Atlantic Conference in August 1941, at which U.S. President Roosevelt and U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill laid out a more detailed form of the alliance called The Atlantic Charter. The final step was the Yalta Conference, in February 1945 when Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed on the establishment of the United Nations as well as the structure of the UN’s Security Council.

Despite having endured for 80 years, generally speaking, the UN is a weak-intentioned, expensive (2024 internal budget of $3.9 billion) bureaucratic mass that is involved in about everything and accomplishes very little. Case in point, did the UN respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine 22 February, 2022? Yes, on March 3rd they voted overwhelmingly for a resolution deploring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and called for the immediate withdrawal of its forces. That was it, no actions taken.

The UN is an established international organization perfectly positioned to be a greater force for the greater good of the collective world. But in its current condition, it is incapable of deterring or bringing to a close a conflict such as exists in Ukraine today. We need to completely rethink this issue right now while
change is possible.

THE UN TODAY:

The overarching mission of the UN is, “to ensure international peace and security.” But they are incapable of doing so and that is primarily because of how the Security Council functions.

THE SECURITY COUNCIL:

By way of explanation, the Security Council consists of five permanent members, the U.S., China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom and ten elected UN members. The presidency of the Council rotates among the fifteen members, each serving for one month. Is anyone surprised that Russia was president in February 2022 when they attacked Ukraine?

Under the United Nations Charter, the principal function of the Security Council is also to, “ensure international peace and security.” Additionally, and this is important, the subset authority allows the Council to:

One, investigate any dispute or situation which might lead to international friction.

Two, recommend methods of adjusting such disputes or the terms of a settlement.

Three, formulate plans for the establishment of a system to regulate armaments.

Four, determine the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression and recommend what action should be taken.

Five, call on members to apply economic sanctions and other measures not involving the use of force to prevent or stop aggression.

And six, take military action against an aggressor. Those six represent a very comprehensive list of positive actions, especially the sixth and final authority to take military action against an aggressor. None of these six actions routinely happen; thus, failure and no peace.

Furthermore, the Security Council rarely acts decisively because of their decision-making process. All Security Council decisions have to be approved by at least 9 of the 15 members. The problem is that any one, it just takes one, of the five permanent members, U.S. Russia, China, France or the UK can veto a proposal. One veto by a permanent member and the issue, no matter how important, becomes a dead issue with no action. Reality is that China and Russia can and do routinely prevent the Security Council from acting out, “to ensure international peace and security.”

The bottom line is that the UN has never been the answer to world peace and never will be. We need a new and different way forward.

PART 3, WORLD PEACE FOREVER CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS.

What is the one-word formula that can make world peace a reality?

That word is deterrence. That is, fear, in the minds of a potential aggressor, of rapid and decisive retaliation by an especially tailored, overwhelming force.

The intent of this paper is to outline a concept of operation that can potentially involve support from the majority of the 195 nations of the world to join a new organization outside and separate from the United Nations.

Let’s call the organization, United for World Peace and the military contingent could be called the International Deterrence Force, IDF. This is not to be confused with Israel’s IDF which stands for Israeli Defense Force. The IDF defined here has absolutely nothing to do with defense. It is all about deterrence based on a very large and capable offensive force.

THE UNITED FOR WORLD PEACE ORGANIZATION

First, establish a relatively small headquarters, preferably NOT in the U.S. There must be continuous emphasis that this is not going to be a U.S.-led organization.

Secondly, there will be a civilian Secretary General elected by the member nations serving one six-year term.

Third, there will be an experienced 4-star military IDF Commander with a separate IDF headquarters.

Fourth, there will be elements of the highly trained, expansive International Defense Force permanently stationed in their home countries ready for immediate rapid deployment to any aggressor nation.

The United for World Peace mission is to, “Ensure continuous world peace and security.” The mission statement must remain simple, singular, focused and all-encompassing.

To accomplish this mission, day-to-day actions at the United for World Peace and IDF headquarters will include:

One, immediate investigation of any international dispute or situation which might lead to international friction.

Two, determine the existence of a threat to the peace or an act of aggression and take immediate action.

Three, formulate plans for the establishment of a system to regulate armaments to include nuclear, chemical and biological.

Four, direct United For World Peace members to apply economic sanctions and other measures not involving the use of force to prevent or stop aggression.

And five most importantly, if members believe any nation’s aggressive activity is pending, be ready every day to rapidly deploy tailored, highly trained offensive IDF elements against an aggressor.

At this point let me strongly emphasize again that this is NOT a U.S. organization and the IDF will likely not be led by a U.S. commander. Everything will belong to the member nations.

Given this framework, let me give you my view of the initial internal workings.

Importantly, this will not resemble the over 120,000 UN employee operation. In my view the United for World Peace organization will be a lot closer to 12 hundred in size than 120,000.

Every member nation must agree to contribute to the IDF elements from their existing force structure that can be deployed anywhere in the world within seven days. Every nation will contribute according to its capabilities. Here is a sense of how that can work with some examples.

The U.S. has the greatest capability in the world for worldwide force-projection. For example, the world watched in awe in 1990 as the U.S. deployed an overwhelming force to the Gulf War in support of a coalition of 38 nations which rapidly defeated the Iraqi forces; more specifics on that later. One U.S. contribution to the IDF could be our entire air-cargo fleet to fly directly to various countries and transport their IDF contributions directly to the targeted area. Another critical U.S. contribution could be our fleet of about 100 aerial refueling tankers.

Countries with few or no actual military resources (only 136 nations have a defense budget) could provide field hospitals, portable field surgical units with doctors and nurses, aircraft maintenance capabilities, truck drivers, border patrol personnel, police, etc. Nations with only small maneuver organizations could provide, for example, man-portable air defense and anti-tank teams and snipers. There will be a very long list of non-combatant rear-area support requirements.

Countries with established air, land and sea combat forces will provide special operations personnel, armored units, light infantry, artillery, helicopters, tactical aircraft, naval vessels, air defense, combat engineers, all the elements for a military theater of operations. Selected nations in several regions would be responsible for providing airports that can be quickly transformed into a full-up military operation with multiple runways, an expanded tarmac, maintenance facilities, and housing for the military contingent.

A member nation, preferably among those without an existing military budget, will fully support IDF military headquarters’ needs.

Imagine a world-wide International Defense Force organization with little or no annual operating budget. I hope you are getting the impression that this entire concept of operations for continuous world peace can be unique, simple, highly trained, focused, rapidly deployable to anywhere there is a need while also being very austere. By contrast the 2024 UN budget was $3.9 billion.

One uniting factor is that the United for World Peace organization will borrow NATO’s Article 5 Concept. That is, an attack on one member is an attack against all members. “Attack”, defined by the IDF will include direct or indirect interaction with ground, air or sea systems as well as the use of non-military systems such as cyber-attacks on member nation civilian and/or military targets.

The first order of business for the IDF military commanders will be to conceptualize what a series of aggressor contingencies might look like. Additionally get current inventories of all the members’ military manpower, organizational structure, weapons systems, ammunition, etc. From all that raw data the planners will tailor, on paper, a draft lean-and-mean, full-time, rapidly deployable force that can take down the aggressor nation or organization. That tailored force, in total may come from several member nations and form up in the conflict area of operations. Always overestimate the IDF requirements. That is, always plan to take a machine gun to a knife fight. Every deploying force should plan to win with overwhelming force and win fast.

DETERRENCE THROUGH READINESS

The IDF Commander will establish and publish standards for every contributed element. Every nation will provide a very detailed quarterly readiness report on the trained-to-standard and deployability status of their IDF contributions.

The IDF headquarters will maintain a robust intel-processing element linked to the intel gathering capabilities of member countries.

Create synergy. In a synergistic force the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. That is, given a simple ground element, an infantry brigade for example, by adding direct support artillery and air assets, air defense, combat engineers, direct support logistics, etc. the force becomes exponentially stronger.

An essential element of the IDF’s readiness will be its ability to create and operate with a common set of tactics, techniques, terminology and procedures. To do this the IDF commander will conduct frequent, inexpensive, virtual command post exercises, CPX, involving subordinate commanders who would be players in each of the IDF commander’s individual contingency plans.

Additionally, at least annually there should be an FTX, field training exercise, wherein actual forces will be flown into a training facility to wargame a particular contingency plan consisting of IDF combined and joint forces. This should get maximum world-wide media coverage as a warning to potential aggressors.

All contributing nations will exist in a state of one of four different IDF Readiness Conditions, IDF-REDCON.

IDF-REDCON 1: Normal peacetime condition. A completed plan will be in place in every member nation. Readiness standards will be in force for every IDF element.

IDF-REDCON 2: The Secretary-General and IDF Commander, having identified a potential threat to a member nation, will tailor a force for deployment and place them on 24-hour alert.

IDF-REDCON 3: All personnel and equipment for the designated units will move to assembly areas. Deployment aircraft will move to their first pick-up airfields.

IDF-REDCON 4: Deployment of all designated elements to the target area and preparing to initiate an overwhelming counteroffensive.

SOME OF MY CONCLUSIONS FROM ALL OF THIS DETAIL.

What does all of this detail come down to? The answer is deterrence. The objective of having a highly recognizable superior force that can rapidly deploy anywhere at any time can become so overwhelming for potential aggressors to think about that the IDF may never have to deploy and world peace will become the order of every day. That is the meaning and objective of deterrence.

My second conclusion is that this IDF concept can annually save trillions of dollars in member nations’ defense spending. How can that happen? There are currently multiple nations that have a full range of heavy, light and special forces along with the entire array of specialty services such as engineers, signal, intelligence, air defense, artillery, helicopters, air forces, ships and on and on. Under the IDF organization a nation only has to sustain and train the particular forces they are to deliver to the deployable force. For example, one nation may train and deploy only air defense systems.

SOME POTENTIAL SCENARIOS FOR THE IDF

An attack on small-country “A” in Africa by a larger neighboring country “B” appears imminent. The IDF Commander determines that inserting a couple of infantry battalions on the ground could possibly sufficiently deter the attack. But, using the intent to always have an overwhelming advantage, the commander will deploy a full infantry brigade along with combat supporting forces and tactical air support. Result, Country “B” packs up and goes home. Deterrence is a powerful force for world peace.

A more serious and far-ranging scenario might look like this: China continues to threaten Taiwan with aggressive air and naval operations. It is determined that the demonstrations are a rehearsal for an actual attack. The Secretary-General and IDF Commander agree to go to IDF-REDCON 3. That is, all personnel and equipment for the designated units will move to assembly areas. Deployment aircraft will move to their first pick-up airfields.

China’s Achilles heel is imported oil, about 11 million barrels per day. Inform China that an overwhelming IDF naval force is in route to the South China Sea to create an impenetrable blockade of all incoming gas and oil tankers. Additionally, missiles and aircraft capable of taking out the gas and oil pipelines from Russia will be immediately forward deployed. The Secretary-General will request China publicly sign a pledge to acknowledge that forevermore Taiwan will be considered an independent nation free of all ties to China and provocative military actions against Taiwan are forbidden. Deterrence in action in support of world peace.

During the fall months of 2021, Russia moved a massive army to the Ukraine border giving every indication they would attack which they eventually did on 22 February, 2022. Had the IDF been in place and an IDF-REDCON 3 announced to the world, there is every reason to believe the Russian invasion would never have taken place. Again, deterrence in action, keeping the peace.

The next step could be for the IDF Commander to visit North Korea to discuss ICBM and nuclear testing. Then on to Iran to discuss Iran’s role as the world’s leading sponsor of terrorist organizations as they routinely finance, train, equip and lead terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis.

The UN is incapable of deterring any of these example scenarios.

Why would countries sign up to be an IDF member? Here is a starter list of ten answers as to why a United for World Peace organization is needed now.

One, Middle East countries and Israel are fearful of the hegemony intentions of a nuclear-equipped Iran but powerless individually to stop it.

Two, South Korea and Japan are very nervous about North Korea’s aggressive offensive missile and nuclear programs but powerless to do anything about it.

Three, Taiwan is fearful of a China invasion.

Four, Europe is fearful of more Russian aggression and use of nuclear weapons.

Five, former Soviet Republics are fearful that they may be next on Putin’s list.

Six, the Baltic countries and Finland are fearful of Russia.

Seven, India is in a constant state of unrest over China’s border incursions.

Eight, African border disputes are a recurring concern.

Nine, Iran’s support for terrorist activities threatens the world.

Ten, aggressors who would use cyberattacks to inflict humanitarian and economic disaster on another nation is a growing threat.

During the first one thousand days of the Ukrainian border conflict there were an estimated 1 to 1.5 million combined dead, wounded, and missing Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and civilians.

Another reason to join other nations as a member in the International Deterrence Force is that there will no longer be a reason to belong to other alliances such as NATO or to maintain ready forces in support of bilateral treaties for mutual protection.

With world peace assurances in place, the next step could be a world without nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, or biological weapons.

The UN “peacekeeping force” budget for 2024 was $6.1 billion. With active worldwide deterrence and an overwhelming rapidly-deployable counter-offensive force trained and ready, peace will be the standard world-wide day-to-day condition.

With a proactive International Deterrence Force in place, no nation would ever need to feel alone or stand-alone.

PART FOUR, PROOF OF CONCEPT FOR WORLD PEACE FOREVER CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS.

About now more than a few of you are still skeptical about the feasibility of putting together a coalition of nations and then being capable of moving a large combat force possibly thousands of miles into combat. I do not recall ever seeing, before the fact, such an overwhelming proof of concept as the one that follows. It drives my conclusion that this proposal is certainly within the art of the possible. Here is why I am convinced and I believe you will be also when you read this brief after-action-report. In 1990 the U.S. led a coalition of nations in one of the most spectacular combat operations in modern warfare, shocking the world with its capability.

OPERATIONS DESERT SHIELD AND DESERT STORM

Many of you will recall that on 2,3 and 4 August 1990 Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces attacked, defeated and occupied their neighbor Kuwait with what Saddam Hussein used to brag was the “Mother of all Armies.” Most believed the takedown of Kuwait was a planned stepping stone for the defeat of Saudi Arabia and its vast oil and gas reserves.

Pay particular attention to this time-line and the size and number of operational elements that deployed from a dead start on 2 August:

3 August, U.S. President Bush announced that U.S. navy ships had deployed to the Persian Gulf.

7 August, President Bush began a military operation named Desert Shield which formed a 35-nation coalition to defend Saudi Arabia and ultimately liberate Kuwait. (numbers rounded for ease of understanding).

7 August, 15,000 U.S. troops, 32 navy destroyers, 100 helicopters and a contingent of fighter air planes arrived in Saudi Arabia.

August, the U.S. 18^th Airborne Corps began forward deployment to Saudi Aribia, 7,500 miles away.

14 September UK and France announce the deployment of troops to Saudi Arabia.

15 January, 1991, the UN deadline for Iraqi forces to be withdrawn from Kuwait expired.

17 January, the coalition operation Desert Shield transitioned to Desert Storm with the following results:

Coalition: 39 countries, of which 28 contributed combat forces.

Force size: Approximately 670,000 troops from 28 countries, 425,000 of which were from the United States.

Coalition air component size: 2,500 combat aircraft, 1,800 of which were American.

Coalition airlift: 509,000 passengers and 594,000 tons of cargo carried.

Coalition sorties flown: 100,000 plus.

Aerial refueling: 15,400 sorties dispensed 110 million gallons of fuel.

Number of dumb bombs dropped: 210,000.

Number of smart bombs dropped: 9,300.

30mm depleted uranium rounds fired by A-10 manned aircraft (tank-killers): 782,000.

Duration of air campaign before the ground invasion: 39 days.

Iraqi tanks lost during the war: 3,700 out of 4,300 on hand.

Number of U.S. Carrier Battle Groups on station: 6.

Coalition POWs taken during the war: 26.

Iraqi POWs taken during the war: 70,000 plus.

U.S. combat related deaths: 147

Iraqi military deaths: 100,000 plus.

Ground war duration: 100 hours.

Yes, a highly effective multiple-nation coalition can be organized in days. The U.S. has done it once and we can show our IDF allies how to do it again.

A final IDF deterrent posture will not be a threat, it will be a promise to aggressors.

PART FIVE, CONCLUSIONS.

Time is of the essence. The Middle East could erupt into World War Three at any moment and the Ukraine conflict could escalate into a nuclear war.

Notwithstanding that President Trump will temporarily appear as a world leader in selling the concept to all of the worlds’ nations, he must continuously emphasize that the U.S. does not intend to lead the United for World Peace organization or the International Deterrent Force.

There is no intent with this initiative to do away with the United Nations. They play an important role in humanitarian relief around the world. But we also must accept the fact that they are powerless when it comes to their mission of, “ensuring international peace and security.”

This concept need not be a multi-year plan for activation. We can make it happen now and insure, as time goes forward, that we gain additional United for World Peace members, improve our capability, agility and deployment times and thereby institutionalize our commitment to world peace forever

There is currently a lot of discussion about the New World Order. Well, here is a new twist on The New World Order, call it World Peace Forever.

There are actions and moments in time that are so momentous they can change the world. We are at one of those “moments” right now and it could actually become one of the most momentous in modern history. President Trump should launch United for World Peace and International Deterrence Force concept of operations now in 2026.

PART SIX, PRESIDENT TRUMP’S TO-DO LIST:

Quickly prepare a brief, concise draft description (who, what, when, where, why and how) of the United for World Peace and International Deterrence Force organizations.

Start the World Peace ball rolling all at once by addressing the U.S. with a pre-announced speech explaining the above concept of operations for world peace. While the address is underway send a copy directly to the leaders of the other 194 nations.

Immediately after the inaugural World Peace address, President Trump should begin personally contacting our major allies asking them to at least tentatively sign as a member nation. Additionally, launch VP Vance, Secretary Rubio and Secretary Hegseth to personally meet with other nations’ leaders to sell the concept of World Peace and ask for their pledge to join.

After a significant number of nations have joined, President Trump could have VP Vance and twelve counterpart Vice Presidents from member nations to act as a selection committee. All member nations will, if they so choose, forward the name of a candidate for Secretary General along with a detailed resume. Those will be studied by VP Vance’s Committee and three candidates will be selected to compete in an election, one vote per member nation. The winner will become the first Secretary General and immediately begin serving a six-year term.

A similar action will simultaneously take place to select the IDF Commander for a four-year term.

If the first 100 leaders of the world’s nations can come forward quickly and, at least tentatively, sign on as members of the United for World Peace organization, we could within a few weeks have both members of the Command Group (Secretary General and IDF Commander) on board with at least a skeleton staff for each. Soon thereafter the IDF Commander could be assessing potential member military contributions, airfields, logistics, headquarters locations, etc. and drafting rapid deployment contingency plans.

The point being that there is potentially so much to be gained and so little risk or expense involved, that it should not be a difficult decision for nations to join.

BOTTOM LINE:

We do not have to build the deterrent/counter offensive force, it already exists, we just have to put it together into logical, deployable, combined-arms packages. It’s almost free.

Try to think about a year from now when some unstable national leader or terrorist organization decides to launch an invasion into all or some portion of a World Peace member nation. Immediately, on day one, the score card on the battlefield could be at least 100 nations against 1 nation and the aggressor will ultimately loose decisively and quickly.

Imagine a world in which there are no terrorist organizations, no internal armed militias killing neighbors, no constant threat from a rough nation with thousands of ballistic missiles (Iran), unpredictable nations with nuclear weapons (North Korea), daily cyberattack threats that could take down a power grid, China’s constant threat to Taiwan, Russia’s reluctance to end their ongoing war in Ukraine, just to name a few. Yes, it is possible to imagine our world with peace.

NOTE TO SUBSCRIBERS:

I believe this subject is much too important to leave it up to someone else. Please take it on yourself to get a copy into the hands of your Representative and Senators. Flood their mailrooms with this proposal. Make your voice heard. Make this become a reality.

THE REAL ICE PROBLEM

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin recently released this statement, “Our ICE law enforcement is now facing an 8,000% increase in death threats against them while they risk their lives every single day to remove the worst of the worst illegal immigrants. From bounties placed on their heads, threats to their families, stalking, and doxxing online, our officers are experiencing an unprecedented level of violence and threats against them and their families.”

Could anything be more unamerican? This behavior begins with the continuous violent rhetoric from Liberal leaders. Where are these Liberal leaders located? A conclusion from the Department of Homeland security: “Make no mistake, sanctuary politicians are contributing to the surge in violent threats and assaults of our officers through their repeated vilification and demonization tactics, including gross comparisons to the Nazi Gestapo.

What “sanctuary politicians?” A report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)reported that, as of May 2025, there are at least 1,003 town, city, county and state sanctuary jurisdictions nationwide. Generally, these are the same idiots who have been advocating for “defund the police.”

All of the rhetoric provides assumed justification by groups of demonstrators initiating action against ICE agents who are arresting illegal immigrant criminals for deportation.

In order to draw some conclusions about what is happing across America today, let’s put the illegal alien apprehension/deportation issue in perspective. Some of this data previously reported in an article by Pem Schaeffer, Immigration Statistics from 1993 thru 2016.

Bill Clinton years: 1993-2000:

Total Apprehensions: 12,211,243

Total Deportations: 12,290,905 (average about 1,536,000 per year)

GW Bush years: 2001-2008:

Total Apprehensions: 9,262,315

Total Deportations: 10,328,850 (average about 1,291,000 per year)

Barack Obama years: 2009-2016:

Total Apprehensions: 5,370,849

Total Deportations: 5,281,115 (average about 660,000 per year)

While there were some random demonstrations during the deportation of 27,900,870 over the 24-year period, ChatGPT concludes that, “these protests tended to focus on broader demands for immigration reform rather than sustained national campaigns directly aimed at ICE agents.”

Donald Trump years: 2017-2021:

Total Apprehensions: just over 2 million

Total Deportations: about 2 million (average about 1,400 per day)

Anti-ICE sentiment and demonstrations were a visible part of public protest activity during Trump’s first term, especially from 2017 through 2018.

Joe Biden years: 2021-2025:

Total Apprehensions: average over 7,000 per day. While there is no single authoritative number of illegal immigrant apprehensions during the Biden administration, 10-11 million is considered an accurate range.

Total Deportations: less than 600,000 (average about 400 per day)

Opposition to ICE and “Abolish ICE” activism was ongoing throughout Biden’s term, mainly as part of a broader immigrant-rights movement (e.g., marches, rallies, and community protests) opposing immigration enforcement and calling for changes in policy.

The Clinton/Biden comparisons reveal a couple important things. First, Clinton, in eight years, 12 million illegals came in, 12 million went out. Biden in four years, 10-11 million came in, 600,000 went out. Why? Clinton saw them for what they were, illegal immigrants. On the other hand, Biden, as an administration policy, deliberately opened the U.S./Mexican border with the specific intent to flow millions of unvetted immigrants into the U.S., gain their political allegiance, thereby add another democrat identity group and seek to dominate the U.S. political scene; at an average of over 7,000 per every 1,461 days of Biden/Harris.

The Second comparison of Clinton era with Biden/Trump, 2021-today has to do with the Democrat party. Those of us well beyond middle-age will remember a Democrat party in the 1990s that was serious about their accomplishments FOR all Americans, (examples, “welfare to work” program, budget surpluses, economic growth, crime reduction, Balkan peace efforts, etc.) They could talk and compromise across the aisle. Their accomplishments were focused generally on what was best for we-the-people. Beginning with Biden/Harris in 2021 the Democrat Party has consistently lied to us (“the border is secure”) and what the millions of illegals, particularly the millions of criminals, terrorists and drug dealers have done and are doing TO we-the-people.

Name one thing the Democrats have done and/or are doing FOR the American people. in the past 5 years. Many Democrats will respond, “The nearly $2 trillion “Inflation Reduction Act.” The truth is that Act had zero impact on inflation as it rose from 1.4% end 2020 to7% end 2021. The current Democrat party is now, since the Trump inauguration, centered on one thing; they are dead-set against any and every Trump policy no matter how much it may do FOR we-the-people. To sustain and enforce their actions on a daily basis they consistently attempt to shift blame for every Biden failure onto the Republican Party in general and President Trump in particular. They have created an on-going, deep-seated culture of hate and blame that has seriously divided the nation.

GOTAWAYS AND ICE CONNECTION

When entering the U.S. not all of the illegals sought out a border agent to be processed. There was a group referred to as the “gotaways.” Many of them were seen on cameras and other sensors but not apprehended. The gotaways did not want to be engaged and processed because they are trans-national gang members, criminals, drug dealers, cartel operators, human traffickers, terrorists and other undesirables. In the four Biden/Harris years there were almost 2 million gotaways “seen” on sensors but not apprehended. The head of the Border Patrol, Paul Ortiz, testified that the number of gotaways could be underreported by at least 20 percent; the real number could be closer to 2.5 million. Then consider the number of criminals and terrorists who were NOT detected at all. Bottom line, Biden and Harris set in motion a border situation in which several millions of criminals and terrorists entered into our society and are still here today.

The gotaways are the “worst of the worst” and by President Trump’s policy, they are to be found, taken in to custody and deported. That is what ICE is all about today. That is their mission.

CONCLUSIONS

Biden and VP Harris committed the most egregious national security offense in our nation’s history. For example, it became common knowledge that Venezuela’s Dictator, Maduro, was emptying his prisons and integrating the convicts by the thousands into the masses of immigrant’s crossing into the U.S. per day. Biden/Harris policies, their decisions, their actions set them apart from the previous four administrations. For example:

Deportation of illegals has been a necessary and successful priority for Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump while the Biden/Harris priority was to retain the maximum possible numbers of illegals, to include the “gotaways.”

The Biden/Harris open border allowed tons of fatal drugs to flow into the U.S. from the Mexican Cartels which resulted in over 400,000 drug overdose deaths by mostly young Americans. Do the math; 400,000 divided by 1461 days in office equals an average 274 deaths per day. Did you ever hear Biden say the word, “fentanyl”? Neither did I.

During the Biden/Harris term, with an average of over 7,000 illegals per day, the processing, transportation, debit card, cell phone, housing, food, medical etc. cost the tax payers hundreds of billions of dollars.

Known international terrorists have entered the U.S. The total number is unknown. The number of new terrorists’ cells that have been created is unknown. The terrorists’ plans and capabilities to disable or even destroy America are unknown.

The FBI has reported that Mexican Cartel operators now exist in all 50 states. For sure, one of their priorities is to organize and focus the new, violent transnational gangs. Gang members become the foot-soldiers for the transportation, distribution and sale of deadly drugs all across America.

Boden/Harris were comfortable lying to we-the-people. Illegal immigration was of course a primary Trump issue during the 2024 Presidential campaign. To counter Trump’s advantage on that issue, the Biden-led Democrats insisted that any changes at the border had to come from Congress. A few hours after being inaugurated, on 20 January, President Trump signed an Executive Order to begin sealing Biden’s open border. Here is a summary of what President Trump has accomplished without Congressional approval:
-Over 2,000 active-duty troops were sent to the border.
-More than 62,000 migrant children “lost” by the Biden administration have been rescued, many from sex and labor trafficking.
-Illegal border crossings have plummeted to the lowest level since 1970.
-Border wall construction has been renewed.
-“Remain in Mexico” policy was renewed.
-Ended catch-and-release.
-Terminated taxpayer-funded public benefits for illegals.
-Declared deadly transnational gangs and numerous Cartels as Foreign Terrorists Organizations.
-Etc, etc.

The Democrat Party is systematically utilizing its entire leadership chain to:

-Oppose every Trump action and policy.

-Repeatedly reclassify Democrat failures and blame Trump/Republicans.

-Label Trump/Republican actions as “racist,” “fascist,” “gestapo” or worse.

-Blame, blame, blame.

-Build hatred towards the entire Trump administration.

-Not accept accountability for the mess our country is in right now.

ALL OF THE ABOVE LEAD US TO A BOTTOM LINE

The Democrat leadership chain from the mayor of the smallest community, through state senior officials and on to Chuck Schumer in the Senate and Hakeem Jeffries in the House are not stupid or unaware. They know that they supported the Biden/Harris open border. They know millions of potentially violent undesirables are now living in our communities. They know American taxpayers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting illegals. They know that our national security is in jeopardy from violent criminals, Cartels and terrorists.

Notwithstanding that knowledge, they are willing and able to openly lie to the American people about the necessity to fix the mess they created.

Having eliminated honesty and accountability from their moral compass, the Democrat leadership adopted a strategy to take all of President Trump’s positive actions and, with unity of effort, create a deception that implies the Trump solutions are worse than the original offenses.

THE REAL BOTTOM LINE

The violent rhetoric, death threats and anti-ICE demonstrations are not about actual hatred of the good, loyal, fellow-American ICE federal agents. It is about creating an additional, nation-wide deception for the failed open border debacle. Anti-ICE across America is not so much about ICE itself but is a subset of the blind-hatred culture they have created against President Trump. Blind-hatred is so intense that the Democrat leaders refuse to consider any other solutions. Their public message to we-the-people is laced with vulgarity, accusations of “racism”, “fascism,”, “gestapo-like” for President Trump himself, his senior leaders and his policies.

A back-handed compliment; the Democrat leadership is good at what they do, unfortunately, what they do is so despicably unamerican and dangerous.

PS…..We better keep ballots out of the illegals’ hands next November. The Dems desperately want to take control of the Congress. If they succeed, their first action will be to pass perhaps the only 4-word law in history; “Amnesty for all, immediately.” If that happens, we can stick a fork in America; we are done. In a few years, add us to the long list of failed socialist countries. Amnesty for all. “All” includes about 24 million 2025 inhabitants who are not citizens.

CHALLENGE ACADEMIA TO FIX AMERICA’S EDUCATION CRISIS

CHALLENGE ACADEMIA TO FIX AMERICA’S EDUCATION CRISIS

In my school district, the School Superintendent has just resigned. The Board of Education is now charged with appointing an interim leader and then searching for a permanent replacement. I prepared a memo to the Board members outlining a new and different concept of operations for the superintendent selection process. The data and description of current operations in the memo are real; the name and location of my school district is not; call it Alfa County School System. The memorandum I sent out is as follows.

DATE: 5 December, 2025

MEMORANDUM FOR: Alfa County Board of Education members

SUBJECT: Selection process for a new Superintendent of Schools

PART ONE, THE PROBLEM

“Education is the wellspring from which a nation ascends … or the quagmire into which it sinks. Education is everything.” Michael Russell

The purpose of this memorandum is to suggest a different methodology for selection of a new permanent Alfa County Superintendent of Schools. The content is a dramatic change from the norm.

Academia defined: Webster, “The life, community, or world of teachers, schools and education.” Cambridge Dictionary, “The part of society that is connected with studying and thinking or the activity or the activity or job of studying.”

However one defines academia, my going-in position is that presently, throughout the United States academia is a failed institution.

FACTS BEARING ON THE PROBLEM:

In 2025 a Gallop poll reported that 73% of Americans are dissatisfied with K-12 education results.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP reports on 4^th and 8^th grade education proficient level every two years and 12^th grade every four years. NEAP is referred to as “the nations report card.” They test all subject areas but let’s use reading and math results as illustrative examples. Since reading is foundational to all subjects; failure to read well keeps students from accessing information and building knowledge across all areas.

NEAP 2024 report shows that FEWER THAN ONE THIRD OF STUDENTS NATIONWIDE ARE READING AT “PROFICIENT” LEVEL. “Proficient” means consistently understanding written test and interpreting its meaning; that a student has demonstrated competency in applying such knowledge to real-world situations. Stated another way, millions of high school “graduates” every year are functionally illiterate. Throughout the U.S. 20% of high school graduates are unable to pass the test to enter the U.S. military.

HOW BAD IS THE “BELOW-PROFICIENCY” ISSUE?

PRE-COVID NAEP REPORT CARD: In 2019 NAEP tested 150,600 grade 4 students, 143,100 grade 8, and 26,700 grade 12 students and reported the findings. Here is a summary pulled from a very large comprehensive report:

READING: The assessment measures reading comprehension by asking students to read selected grade-appropriate materials and answer questions based on what they have read.

Grade 4 Grade 8 Grade 12

NOT proficient: 59% 66% 76%

MATHEMATICS: The assessment measures both mathematics knowledge and the students’ ability to apply their knowledge in problem-solving situations.

Grade 4 Grade 8 Grade 12

NOT proficient: 65% 66% 63%

Other subjects were even worse. For high school seniors 88% NOT proficient in history, 77% NOT proficient in writing ability and 78% NOT proficient in science.

If we had to put a grade on this NAEP finding, it’s clearly an “F”. Any other organization with those results would be out of business; but unfortunately, it is consistent with government-run operations.

MORE BAD ACADEMIA NEWS

According to ELEVATE USA, on average, over a million students drop out of high school in the U.S. every year; that’s 5-6,000 every school day thereby creating a linkage to a life of crime and/or welfare. The U.S. high school dropouts commit about 75% of the crimes. About 75% of prison inmates do not have a high school diploma.

“Dropout factories” refer to high schools with less than 60 percent graduating seniors when compared to the number of freshmen. Of the 26,727 public and private high schools in America, almost 2,000 graduate less than 60% of their students. Those dropout factories account for over 50% of the students who leave school every year. One in six U.S. students attend a dropout factory. One in three minority students (32%) attend a dropout factory compared to 8% of white students.

High school graduation rates vary by state from 82% to 96%. But that does not necessarily tell the whole story because it is a fact that some states have lowered the standards for graduation in order to achieve a higher number.

More snapshots that illustrate the problems in government-run public schools:

A stunning report published 12 November 2025 by the University of California San Diego, during placement testing found that on math proficiency 61% could not round 374,518 to the nearest one hundred. Rounding is typically taught in 3^rd grade.

Providence, RI: Only 5% of eighth graders are proficient in math.

Newark, NJ: 21% proficiency in math.

Wisconsin: Black American eighth graders perform only slightly better than white fourth graders in reading and math.

In 2021, multiple California school districts dropped D and F grades calling it, “competency-based learning.” Learning? really?

Schools across the country are banning homework. More psychobabble reasoning.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown quietly signed a bill on July 14, 2020 that suspends a requirement for Oregon students to demonstrate reading, writing and math proficiency in order to receive a diploma.

From NAEP 2022 testing, 68% of North Carolina’s 4th-graders were not proficient in reading

And so it goes across the country. A recent survey found that 20% of American adults cannot name even one of the three branches of government.

Average U.S. annual spending per public school student was over $14,000 in 2023. That is about 34% higher than the average of the other 37 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries. Currently our number one “solution” to improving education results in the U.S. is for the feds and states to throw money at the problem. It’s not working.

HOW ARE ALFA COUNTY SCHOOLS DOING IN ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE?

Information taken from the 2025-2027 Alfa County Schools Strategic Plan:

“Context ranking for composite Grade Level Proficiency, Alfa County is in 10^th place in the State.” Well, 10^th place in the state sounds OK, but………In Alfa County schools,

“3^rd grade reading Grade Level Proficiency, 58.2%”.

“10^th Grade Level Proficiency, 66%.”

“Overall composite Grade Level Proficiency, 62.4%.”

“Math Grade Level Proficiency, 61.4%.”

These few facts beg the question, what are the proficiency levels in other subjects and in all grades in Alfa County schools?

THIS IS OVERALL A PATHETIC ALFA COUNTY SCHOOL PERFORMANCE. This begs another question, are we going to be satisfied with the usual concept for selecting a new Superintendent?

Habitually the Superintendent “selection process” will consist of pulling together a short list of candidates form the academic community, study their training, qualifications, etc. followed by interviews and then make a selection

PART TWO, A SOLUTION?

Whatever process is utilized what are the key elements to look at? For example, a proven leader, an experienced planner, an understanding of organizational culture, standards-based daily operations and a teach/test approach to teaching.

A LEADER DEFINED:

My definition, “A leader is someone who is taking the organization elsewhere.” Because, “an organization must change or die.” Because, “Change is inevitable, progress is optional.”

And: “Being a leader is not a passive activity.”

One can research academia leader training and development all day and the word “limited” keeps showing up. In most cases there is references to “seminars, workshops and mentoring.”

Wouldn’t it be nice to find Superintendent candidates with decades of leadership training and experience?

PLANNING EXPERTISE AT ALL THREE LEVELS, FIRST-LINE LEADERS (Teachers), OPERATIONAL LEADERS (Principals), AND STRATEGIC LEVEL (Superintendent).

I cannot find any academia reference to training for planners at any of the three levels.

UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE IN AN ORGANIZATION.

Culture is a powerful and pervasive FORCE in every organization. By “organization” I mean everything from a small team of individuals to the largest of organizations to even the United States as a whole. The “power” in culture can be positive or negative. The culture can be especially defined and nurtured or exist by happenstance. Culture is a force-multiplier. I have never heard any comments from anyone about the daily operational culture of the Alfa school organization.

STANDARDS-BASED OPERATIONS THROUGHOUT THE ORGANIZATION.

This implies that everything that happens in academia is a defined task and for every task there is a well-defined standard. I believe at best it is hit-and miss concept in academia.

TEACH/TEST, TEACH/TEST OPERATIONS.

It is a fact of life that some students get behind. It is also a fact that if not “fixed” they will likely get further behind and eventually hopelessly behind to the point that they give up and drop out of school by the thousands every school day. A continuously used teach/test methodology will quickly identify who needs help now. While I am certain it must exist In some schools, I cannot find any reference to this teaching methodology throughout academia.

CONCLUSIONS TO THIS POINT

A school district is a large organization with thousands of players. Alfa County School System has over 13,000 enrollment and about 1,800 staff.

Generally speaking, in the natural course of events, an individual in academia moving from teacher, to principal to consideration for selection to superintendent has received little or no training in how to lead a large organization.

There are sources other than academia to seek candidate for Alfa County School Superintendent who may be better qualified.

SHIFTING GEARS IN THIS PAPER

I’m sure you are getting the impression that I am about to suggest a complete re-do when it comes to looking for a new superintendent. You are correct. The new source you should look at is retired military officers in grades Lieutenant Colonel or Colonel.

REASONS WHY

Reason One has to do with skills to lead an organization. (I will reference U.S. Army skills simply because they are the skills I know best.)

At age 22 or 23 a Military Academy or ROTC commissioned officer attends a 3-month Basic Course to learn the skill-set for their Branch (infantry, armor, artillery, intelligence, military police, signal, logistics, aviation, etc.)

They then, as 2^nd Lieutenants, move to their first assignment and become a platoon leader at the tactical level. They learn and practice leadership, teaching and planning for about 30 soldiers. Everything that happens in their upward movement over the next 2-3 decades is based purely on merit; constantly moving the best of the best upward.

As Captains, a selected number will command and lead a company of over 100 soldiers. They again will lead, teach, plan and mentor at the tactical level.

Once promoted to major, they will likely serve in various staff positions. As majors the best of the best will be selected for one-year attendance at a military Staff College to prepare to lead, teach and plan at the operational level of warfare.

Upon selection for promotion to lieutenant colonel, the very best will be selected to command a battalion; several hundred soldiers in several company size units.

Upon highly successful completion of battalion command, the best will then be selected to attend the Army War College for one year to prepare to lead, teach and plan at the strategic level.

Upon selection for promotion to Colonel, the very best will also be selected to command a brigade; 3,000 -5,000 soldiers.

That is a meritocracy snap shot of what a candidate for Superintend from the U.S. Army will have accomplished in 20 to 25 years. The best estimate of the number of colonels retiring per year is anywhere from 5-10% of the approximate 3,500 serving now (175-350 individuals).

WHAT SETS THESE COLONELS APART FROM MOST ACADEMICIANS?

ONE they have years of leadership experience at all three levels, tactical, operational and strategic. They know how to “take the organization elsewhere.” They are not overwhelmed by change; change is their norm.

Their leadership is about vision and end-state. Vision is a critical piece of leading any organization.

The Vision statement in the current Alfa County School System strategic plan is, “The First and Best Choice in education with an unwavering commitment to excellence, innovation, and ensuring the development of the leaders of tomorrow.” First, few students have a “choice” as to where they are going to school K-12. Secondly, “developing leaders” is not a viable K-12 task.

What an Army Colonel is going to bring is a more specific vision of an unwavering commitment to academic excellence in every classroom every day where every student learns every task to standard.

TWO, leaders are planners, that’s what they do. Successful planning at any level is an art and can be difficult. The first step in planning is to define the end-state. There is wisdom in an old saying, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” A Superintendent with a military background will have years of experience as a planner at all three levels, guided by vision and end-state.

THREE, they completely understand the criticality of having a powerful, understandable, operational culture. Culture is a powerful and pervasive force in every organization. While not specifically articulated separately, what comes out of the Army’s beliefs, values, customs and traditions is a culture of ACCOUNTABILITY, TRUST AND RESPECT. It is powerful, it is talked about, it guides training, it demands honesty at every level by everyone.

Every soldier and every leader in the U.S. Army is held “accountable” every day for their ability to work every one of their tasks to standard. It is a powerful and successful culture. It directly supports mission accomplishment which defines readiness which sends a message of deterrence to all of our adversaries. Every colonel in our Army has lived it every day of their merit-based career. Powerful stuff.

FOUR, and perhaps most important, they will implant standards. THIS IS HOW ALFA SCHOOLS CAN RISE ABOVE THE CURRENT PATHETICALLY LOW PROFICIENCY IN ALL SUBJECTS. I don’t see current academia doing this. Let me describe what the U.S. Army operation is and then define how it is adaptable to every school. for every subject, every student, in every classroom every day.

Everything every soldier does is defined as a “task.” For every task there is a defined “condition” (for example doing it at night vs daytime). And for every task there is a “standard.” Tasks are defined for every grade, private through general officer, and for every specialty. That is, everyone has an MOS a Military Occupational Specialty and every soldier has a task list specifically designed for his/her MOS>

There are literally tens of thousands of Army tasks and every task has a standard. Every soldier meets the standard; some find it easy; some find it very difficult but all meet it.

Standards are the 24/7 measuring stick. There is always an answer to the question, “how are we doing?” Any organization can do this. Academia can do this. Task/Condition/Standard is a game-changer and a force multiplier.

OK, academia, where do you get a task list for every grade, every subject? It’s not difficult. The superintendent in Alfa County School System can set it up and activate it in a few weeks. The Governor could/should do it for their whole state.

STANDARDS:

An organization without standards is a failed organization. The Superintendent should pull together some teams to immediately get to work on standards for every discipline taught in their school system.

What does a “standard” look like for education? A simple example for math is that at some point every student will have memorized for immediate recall multiplication tables from 1×1 to 12×12. And that point in time will be listed in the teachers’ lesson plans. For comparison, here is a portion of the North Carolina, “Standard for elementary math. 1) Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2) Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3) Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4) Model with mathematics. 5) Use appropriate tools strategically.” There is more but you get the picture. How can this type of psychobabble get translated into lesson plans that lead to specific tasks and standards and eventually to student proficiency?

The Superintendent could set up a task force for developing tasks and standards for Alfa County Schools. It could work like this:

Three outstanding kindergarten teachers and three elementary school principals meet to define the end-state of the kindergarten year of instruction. They will specify the entirety of the tasks and standards for proficiency. They will lay out the chronologic flow of tasks to be taught and a standard for each. After a couple days of work, they will identify an end state that kindergarten teachers will use to produce their lesson plans for the year. Task/Condition/Standards, it works.

Three selected first-grade teachers will have set in and observed the session with the kindergarten teachers and will have a clear understanding of what the kindergarten end state will have achieved. On the next day they will follow the same scenario to define all of the tasks and standards for end of year, first grade; again, with three 2^nd grade teachers listening.

This scenario will be repeated through grade 4 so that in just a couple weeks the elementary student standards can be set for basic training, K-4. Task/Condition/Standards. Recall, NAEP reported that nationally 59% of 4^th graders are currently NOT proficient in reading and 65% are NOT proficient in math.

The 5^th grade, middle school and high school standards for individual subjects (math, science, English, civics, geography, history, etc.) will be worked in the same manner, each beginning by understanding the end state from the previous grade.

Throughout this exercise do not lose site of the overall objective. It is to end up with a list of specific TASKS that every teacher in every subject in every grade will use as the start point to build their lesson plans for the year. Every student to STANDARD in every task, thereby achieving the desired/required end of year success is the objective. Tasks are not set in concrete. There should be constant dialogue among teachers and the principal to add, delete, alter individual tasks/standards to improve the overall product. Task/condition/standard is a dynamic process. Army Colonels have lived this process every day for a couple of decades. “It” is what leading an organization is all about and is particularly applicable to academia.

FIVE, organizational alignment for action. A year or so ago when I first looked at the Alfa County Schools organization chart, it was a shock. An organization’s org chart tells a story. It defines relationships among key elements and leaders. Importantly it clearly articulates who are the Superintendent’s “direct reports”. It clearly identifies the Superintendent’s priorities.

Look at it from the perspective of the school principals. What they clearly see is the Superintendent, who they believed would/should be their boss, has four direct reports; Operations, Human Resources, Budget and Communications (assumed public relations).

The Superintendent has zero direct reports that relate to the mission, “Alfa County Schools will graduate students with the skills, knowledge, character, critical thinking, and education needed to become proud and successful Americans.”

In this organization chart he school principals find themselves depicted as far away as possible from the Superintendent’s box at the top. Furthermore, they will find themselves, with zero priority, lumped together with Directors and Coordinators for Exceptional Children Services, Curriculum and Instruction, Student Support Services, Special Projects, Grants and Federal Programs, Planning, and Technology all working for two Assistant Superintendents.

This demonstrates that academia leaders may be incapable of drawing a clear, unmistakable, direct relationship between mission (academic excellence) and organizational alignment.

CONCLUSIONS

The U.S. is becoming increasingly more functionally illiterate. Alfa County Schools can/should rise above this crisis.

There is so much wisdom in the old saying, “If we always do what we have always done we will always get what we always got”. Change or die. We have to move education to a new and better place. If you are not afraid of where Academia, in general, is headed, you haven’t been paying attention.

The above narrative and statistics are designed to do two things. One is to impress on you, the Alfa County Board of Education, the length and breadth of the overall education crisis. And secondly to begin to identify and then define problems. If we cannot articulate the problem, there is no solution.

What is the main reason students get poor grades? Why do they fail end-of-grade tests? Why do they drop out? Why do they graduate high school functionally illiterate? The shortest, simplest answer is, at some point THEY GOT BEHIND. Once behind they could not catch up and as they moved on to more complex material in the next grade they got even further behind.

If you look at enough of the NAEP proficiency test results one thing will jump off the page. That is, if the proficiency levels are bad in 4^th grade they are going to be worse in 8^th grade and too often also worse from 8^th to 12^th.

Once behind, grades continue to get worse, students get frustrated, harassed, ridiculed and get to the point that dropping out looks like a good solution and put school in the rear-view mirror.

“Education” is an organization. Organizations have a “product.” The product of education in the U.S. is a high school graduate who is proficient in all areas of study to the extent that they are qualified and capable of extending their education in college or to be fully competitive in the work force.

Organizational underpinnings are what someone sees and feels about an organization. Critical to any organization’s success are foundational elements such as Organizational Structure, Culture, Delegation and Empowerment, Leader Development, Organizing for Action, After-action Review, Character and Dealing with the 21^stCentury Environment. Understanding them and knowing how to use them are enablers for success. I know from first-hand experience, Army Colonels are steeped in all of this. Is academia equally qualified?

Change the Alfa School mission statement to simply read, “Achieve Academic Excellence in every classroom for every student every day.”

Put “Academic Excellence” on the stationary.

The first question for every single action worked by the Superintendent’s staff must be, how will this help academic excellence?

Academic excellence and the culture of accountability, trust and respect should be discussed in every Superintendent meeting.

Put a big sign on the front door of every school, Academic Excellence Here.

BOTTOM LINE

There are retiring Army Colonels out there. They are about 45 years old, looking for a challenging and rewarding second 20-year career and may be the best thing that could possibly happen to the Alfa County School System. Think about it.

Again, “If we always do what we have always done we will always get what we always got.”

This paper is not about militarizing education, it is about an alternative concept of operations as you, the Board of Education, set about looking for a new Superintendent. Perhaps begin with some new and different criteria; a candidate who is steeped in leadership, planning capabilities, first-hand understanding of the power in an organization’s culture, what tasks and standards mean to the equation for success, and organizational alignment. My sense is that none of these are academia strengths.

Respectfully,

Marv Covault

CHALLENGE ACADEMIA TO FIX AMERICA’S EDUCATION CRISIS

DATE: 5 December, 2025

MEMORANDUM FOR: Alfa County Board of Education members

SUBJECT: Selection process for a new Superintendent of Schools

PART ONE, THE PROBLEM

“Education is the wellspring from which a nation ascends … or the quagmire into which it sinks. Education is everything.” Michael Russell

The purpose of this memorandum is to suggest a different methodology for selection of a new permanent Alfa County Superintendent of Schools. The content is a dramatic change from the norm.

However one defines academia, my going-in position is that presently, throughout the United States academia is a failed institution.

FACTS BEARING ON THE PROBLEM:

In 2025 a Gallop poll reported that 73% of Americans are dissatisfied with K-12 education results.

HOW BAD IS THE “BELOW-PROFICIENCY” ISSUE?

READING: The assessment measures reading comprehension by asking students to read selected grade-appropriate materials and answer questions based on what they have read.

Grade 4 Grade 8 Grade 12

NOT proficient: 59% 66% 76%

MATHEMATICS: The assessment measures both mathematics knowledge and the students’ ability to apply their knowledge in problem-solving situations.

Grade 4 Grade 8 Grade 12

NOT proficient: 65% 66% 63%

Other subjects were even worse. For high school seniors 88% NOT proficient in history, 77% NOT proficient in writing ability and 78% NOT proficient in science.

MORE BAD ACADEMIA NEWS

More snapshots that illustrate the problems in government-run public schools:

Providence, RI: Only 5% of eighth graders are proficient in math.

Newark, NJ: 21% proficiency in math.

Wisconsin: Black American eighth graders perform only slightly better than white fourth graders in reading and math.

In 2021, multiple California school districts dropped D and F grades calling it, “competency-based learning.” Learning? really?

Schools across the country are banning homework. More psychobabble reasoning.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown quietly signed a bill on July 14, 2020 that suspends a requirement for Oregon students to demonstrate reading, writing and math proficiency in order to receive a diploma.

From NAEP 2022 testing, 68% of North Carolina’s 4th-graders were not proficient in reading

And so it goes across the country. A recent survey found that 20% of American adults cannot name even one of the three branches of government.

HOW ARE ALFA COUNTY SCHOOLS DOING IN ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE?

Information taken from the 2025-2027 Alfa County Schools Strategic Plan:

“Context ranking for composite Grade Level Proficiency, Alfa County is in 10^th place in the State.” Well, 10^th place in the state sounds OK, but………In Alfa County schools,

“3^rd grade reading Grade Level Proficiency, 58.2%”.

“10^th Grade Level Proficiency, 66%.”

“Overall composite Grade Level Proficiency, 62.4%.”

“Math Grade Level Proficiency, 61.4%.”

These few facts beg the question, what are the proficiency levels in other subjects and in all grades in Alfa County schools?

THIS IS OVERALL A PATHETIC ALFA COUNTY SCHOOL PERFORMANCE. This begs another question, are we going to be satisfied with the usual concept for selecting a new Superintendent?

PART TWO, A SOLUTION?

A LEADER DEFINED:

My definition, “A leader is someone who is taking the organization elsewhere.” Because, “an organization must change or die.” Because, “Change is inevitable, progress is optional.”

And: “Being a leader is not a passive activity.”

One can research academia leader training and development all day and the word “limited” keeps showing up. In most cases there is references to “seminars, workshops and mentoring.”

Wouldn’t it be nice to find Superintendent candidates with decades of leadership training and experience?

PLANNING EXPERTISE AT ALL THREE LEVELS, FIRST-LINE LEADERS (Teachers), OPERATIONAL LEADERS (Principals), AND STRATEGIC LEVEL (Superintendent).

I cannot find any academia reference to training for planners at any of the three levels.

UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE IN AN ORGANIZATION.

STANDARDS-BASED OPERATIONS THROUGHOUT THE ORGANIZATION.

This implies that everything that happens in academia is a defined task and for every task there is a well-defined standard. I believe at best it is hit-and miss concept in academia.

TEACH/TEST, TEACH/TEST OPERATIONS.

CONCLUSIONS TO THIS POINT

A school district is a large organization with thousands of players. Alfa County School System has over 13,000 enrollment and about 1,800 staff.

There are sources other than academia to seek candidate for Alfa County School Superintendent who may be better qualified.

SHIFTING GEARS IN THIS PAPER

REASONS WHY

Reason One has to do with skills to lead an organization. (I will reference U.S. Army skills simply because they are the skills I know best.)

As Captains, a selected number will command and lead a company of over 100 soldiers. They again will lead, teach, plan and mentor at the tactical level.

Upon selection for promotion to lieutenant colonel, the very best will be selected to command a battalion; several hundred soldiers in several company size units.

Upon highly successful completion of battalion command, the best will then be selected to attend the Army War College for one year to prepare to lead, teach and plan at the strategic level.

Upon selection for promotion to Colonel, the very best will also be selected to command a brigade; 3,000 -5,000 soldiers.

WHAT SETS THESE COLONELS APART FROM MOST ACADEMICIANS?

Their leadership is about vision and end-state. Vision is a critical piece of leading any organization.

What an Army Colonel is going to bring is a more specific vision of an unwavering commitment to academic excellence in every classroom every day where every student learns every task to standard.

There are literally tens of thousands of Army tasks and every task has a standard. Every soldier meets the standard; some find it easy; some find it very difficult but all meet it.

STANDARDS:

What does a “standard” look like for education? A simple example for math is that at some point every student will have memorized for immediate recall, multiplication tables from 1×1 to 12×12. And that point in time will be in the teachers’ lesson plans. For comparison, here is a portion of the North Carolin “Standard for elementary math.” Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2) Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3) Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4) Model with mathematics. 5) Use appropriate tools strategically.” There is more but you get the picture. How can this type of psychobabble get translated into lesson plans that lead to specific tasks and standards and eventually to student proficiency?

The Superintendent could set up a task force for developing tasks and standards for Alfa County Schools. It could work like this:

This demonstrates that academia leaders may be incapable of drawing a clear, unmistakable, direct relationship between mission (academic excellence) and organizational alignment.

CONCLUSIONS

The U.S. is becoming increasingly more functionally illiterate. Alfa County Schools can/should rise above this crisis.

There is so much wisdom in the old saying, “If we always do what we have always done, we will always get what we always got.”. Change or die. We have to move education to a new and better place. If you are not afraid of where Academia, in general, is headed, you haven’t been paying attention.

Once behind, grades continue to get worse, students get frustrated, harassed, ridiculed and get to the point that dropping out looks like a good solution and put school in the rear-view mirror.

Change the Alfa School mission statement to simply read, “Achieve Academic Excellence in every classroom for every student every day.”

Put “Academic Excellence” on the stationary.

The first question for every single action worked by the Superintendent’s staff must be, how will this help academic excellence?

Academic excellence and the culture of accountability, trust and respect should be discussed in every Superintendent meeting.

Put a big sign on the front door of every school, Academic Excellence Here.

BOTTOM LINE

Again, “If we always do what we have always done we will always get what we always got.”

Respectfully,

Marv Covault

ARE WE JUST WAITING FOR A SNIPER TO KILL SOME ICE FEDERAL AGENTS BEFORE WE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE LIBERAL VIOLENCE AGAINST ICE?

We have millions of illegal immigrants living among us; some good, some bad. The Trump administration launched “Plan A” to deport the “worst of the worst.” It is a disaster, inciting violence across the country and getting worse every day. There does not appear to be a “Plan B” in place. The intent of this publication is to define the violence piece in Part One and to define a way ahead in Part Two which is Plan B.

PART ONE, VIOLENCE IN AMERICA AND ANTI-ICE DEMOCRATS

FACTS BEARING ON THE PROBLEM:

The Democrat Left does not criticize President Biden and VP Harris who, by design and policy, committed the most egregious national security offense in our nation’s history by opening the borders in order to expand a future Liberal voting base.

The Biden/Harris open border allowed tons of fatal drugs to flow into the U.S. from the Mexican Cartels which resulted in about 400,000 drug overdose deaths by mostly young Americans. Do the math; 400,000 divided by 1,461 days in office equals an average 2,738 DEATHS PER DAY while the Biden administration insisted, “the border is secure.”

During the Biden administration there were well over 13 million “encounters” and “released migrants”. Additionally, there was a group referred to as the “gotaways.” Many of them were seen on cameras and other sensors but not engaged by Border Control agents. The gotaways did not want to be engaged and processed because they are trans-national gang members, criminals, drug dealers, cartel operators, human traffickers, terrorists and other undesirables.

In the first three Biden/Harris years there were 1,592,132 gotaways “seen” on sensors but not apprehended; plus, an additional 190,000 during the first half of 2024. The head of the Border Patrol, Paul Ortiz testified that the number of gotaways could be underreported by at least 20 percent. The real number of trans-national gang members, criminals, drug dealers, cartel operators, human traffickers, terrorists and other undesirables could be closer to 2.5 million walking our streets today. But then consider the perhaps hundreds of thousands or millions of criminals and terrorists who were not detected at all.

The FBI estimates there are about 33,000 gangs in the U.S. with a total of about one million members. The Biden/Harris open border has paved the way for the growth of transnational gangs which are known to be particularly vicious; for example, Tren de Aragua from Venezuela and MS-13 from El Salvador. Additionally, volent Mexican cartels are also operating in all 50 states.

While the First Amendment guarantees “freedom of assembly”, many states have enacted laws focusing on gang affiliation to discourage the criminal behavior of gangs. At the federal level there is currently no gang-specific law, but it does prosecute the members of criminal gangs or groups under the powerful law known as the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). We desperately need a more specific federal gang law.

ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is a U.S. federal agency whose mission is, “To protect America from national security and public safety threats by enforcing immigration and customs laws to include detaining unauthorized immigrants and removing them from our country.”

TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME PLUS

Anyone in America who has some misgivings about President Trump is often categorized as suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Sometimes that accusation is made only in jest. However, what we see happening across this country is something much more serious than Trump Derangement Syndrome; It’s BLIND HATRED. Democrats in general and Democrat leaders in particular who deeply hate who President Trump is, everything he says and everything he does to the extent that they are absolutely blind to EVERY positive thing that is happening. Their words and actions are unamerican, these people are not patriots and they are creating and encouraging a dangerous violent environment throughout America.

Trump’s success at border security, energy development, the economy, military recruitment, trade agreements, massive incoming foreign investment, and spectacular foreign policy deals and ceasefires are all categorized by the Blind Hatred Democrat leadership as racist, fascist, unconstitutional and illegal and must be stopped (implied, at any cost).

Los Angeles mayor, Bass calls ICE activities, “A reign of terror.”

California Governor, Newsome calls ICE activities, “chaotic, reckless and cruel.”

Illinois Governor, Pritzker calls ICE activities, “An unconstitutional invasion by the federal government.”

Chicago mayor, Johnson calls ICE activities, “Terror-style tactics.”

Minority leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, “Cruelty seems to be the point of these raids.”

Speaking of Democrat leaders’ rhetoric, this past week former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, perhaps the most prominent Democrat leader for the past two decades, publicly referred to President Trump as a “vile creature” and “the worst thing on the face of the Earth” and then she doubled down by saying, “I could have done much worse.” I’ll let your imagination suggest what she might have meant by that. Does she not understand that name-calling is the first step leading to violent actions?

Bottom line, Biden and Harris set in motion a border situation in which millions of criminals and terrorists entered into our society and are still here today. We desperately need for ICE to become operationally unincumbered by violent adversarial words and deeds.

When blind-hatred Democrat leaders provide daily outbursts of dangerous rhetoric, they are sending a clear message that violence against ICE federal agents (or even the president) is not only OK, but is actually encouraged.

Will the violence against ICE agents go away anytime soon? There is zero reason to believe it will. Will violence against ICE agents get worse? The Democrat leader anti-ICE rhetoric is relentless and growing to the extent that the lives of ICE agents are clearly threatened.

Here is a scenario that is being played out every day across the country. ICE agents provide up-coming operational intensions to a city’s law enforcement. That information leaks out or is intentionally broadcast by Democrat mayors. The criminal illegal aliens in that area are likely to depart until ICE agents are gone. It also provides the anti-ICE elements time to prepare for their demonstrations.

While agents are arresting a suspect, it is often being videoed up close by demonstrators and later viewed by millions on social media and national news media. Often the suspects resist and what we see is two agents attempting to restrain the suspect while a third agent attempts to get the suspect handcuffed. To some that video represents resisting arrest but to the demonstrators those federal agents’ identity is being broadcast on social media under a headline of “POLICE BRUTALITY.”

That is why DHS instituted the policy that ICE agents would henceforth wear face masks. The Democrats went crazy; “Undemocratic”, “Against the law” etc. etc

On 30 October 2025, the Department of Homeland Security released this statement,
Our ICE law enforcement is now facing an 8,000% increase in death threats against them while they risk their lives every single day to remove the worst of the worst.” Face masks? Yes, for personal protection.

Between January 21 and November 21 of 2024 under the Biden administration there were 19 assaults against ICE agents. During the same time span in 2025 DHS says the number has exploded to 238; more than 1,200% increase.

Some will say the anti-ice demonstrators are just voicing policy objections, they will not succumb to violent actions. In 2024, 243 law enforcement officers were shot in America. That is a 25% increase over 2023. Take off your rose-colored glasses, America is now a violent place.

Another example of violence in America is Chicago. The question is not whether someone will be shot in Chicago over any weekend, but rather how many will be shot. This year, 2025:

Over Memorial Day weekend, 24 people were shot.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, 44 people were shot.

Over Labor Day weekend, 58 people were shot.

A more recent, nothing-special weekend, (Nov 21–24), 26 wounded, 3 killed.

This is the new normal and coincidentally, Illinois Governor Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Johnson are making national news every week criticizing President Trump for wanting to assist in crime control and allow ICE agents to deport “the worst of the worst” illegal alien criminals. Blind hatred joins stupidity.

CONCLUSIONS

The blind-hatred Democrat leaders cannot accept that we must do something about the 33,000 violent gangs in America and that federal agents must to allowed to do their jobs unmolested.

“To” vs “For” issues. During the Biden/Harris open borders era, it is now documented what they did TO America. Now the blind-hatred Democrats cannot see what the Trump administration is doing FOR America to regain our national security. A president’s first responsibility is the safety and security of all Americans; the greater good.

Democrat leaders have not learned over the past 18 months that a constant flow of dangerous rhetoric can lead to violent actions. Candidate Trump came within a fraction of an inch of being assassinated during his presidential campaign. Soon after, a second Trump assassination attempt was shut down at the last minute. Charlie Kirk, a national leader preaching to young Americans about God, Family and Country was recently senselessly assassinated.

BOTTOM LINE. There is every reason to believe that ICE federal agents will be the next victims by some deranged individual who is motivated to action by relentless hateful rhetoric. We should not wait for that to happen; President Trump needs to act NOW.

PART TWO, DOCUMENTATION OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS CAN PROVIDE A SAFER OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT FOR ICE AGENTS; PLAN B

PHASE ONE, THE DOCUMENTATION CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS, (to be set up by the first week in January 2026)

Within the next couple weeks, President Trump should provide an emergency presentation to the nation during the evening hours that is carried by all media. Using lots of irrefutable data, paint the picture of the current violent America, particularly, the potential for life-threatening actions against ICE federal agents. Declare that ICE apprehension/deportation will be temporarily suspended before an agent is killed by an assassin.

President Trump should also send to Congress a proposed federal law that specifically deals with apprehension and prosecution of gangs and gang members.

President Trump should cause the leaders of the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency to form a semi-secret (no media, no public relations activities) nation-wide task force to take down the 33,000 violent gangs and the Cartel operators who are using many of the gangs in all 50 states. There will be a special effort to compile massive Humint (human intelligence) on the who/what/when/where/why/how of gangs’ operations in order to take them down in their totality. Good job for Vice President Vance to provide White House emphasis. As pointed out earlier, President Trump needs to immediately send to Congress for action a new federal law dealing with the prosecution of gang members.

There is a way to bring more clarity to the entire deportation concept and perhaps take some operational pressure off of ICE. That is, segregate the illegal aliens into two distinct categories; those whose only crime is illegal entry and those who are also an on-going or potential threat to society.

Point out that we should recognize there are millions of illegals who have a job, are law-abiding, are valued employees or self-employed, are respected neighbors, have been here for years, perhaps pay taxes, are not being sustained by government programs and should be considered for future citizenship. Perhaps even the blind-hatred Democrat leaders can understand this. Citizenship for the illegals has always been their end state. The difference is that their solution has always been “amnesty for all.” “All” including the criminals and terrorists. If the Democrats take control of Congress in the 2026 mid-term elections, amnesty for all will be their first order of business if this Immigration Reform Law is not passed and executed in the next 60-90 days.

The best way to distinguish the two groups is to issue a form of documentation (called an Illegal Alien Card, IA Card for short) for the good folks and the lack thereof for all others.

The President will explain the contents of a 10-page Immigration Reform Plan law that he is sending to the Congress for passage. The law will define the steps to be takin over the next approximately 60-90 days. The language in the law must be very specific and not subject to interpretation or change by States or local authorities or rogue federal judges.

Additionally, in Phase One, each State should be directed to get a head start by setting up IA Card registration sites. A logical solution is to temporarily add new positions to every DMV office. Each state should already have some knowledge of about how many illegals reside in their state.

Furthermore, in Phase One, every law enforcement agency in the United States will forward information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation on every felony committed by an undocumented inhabitant (who, what, when and where). The FBI will establish and maintain a national database of these cases which allows for an immediate check against an application for an IA Card. This must be completed and operational by the first week in January.

Testimony by the Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies stated that, “an estimated 59% of households headed by illegal immigrants use one or more major welfare programs, compared to 39% of households headed by U.S.-born citizens.” Unless we can change the way we operate,Illegal Immigrants currently in the U.S. will cost tax payers an estimated $1 trillion dollars every 5-6 years.

Federal law, primarily the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, makes individuals without a “qualified” immigration status ineligible for most major federal benefit programs. This ineligibility applies to several of the country’s major social safety net programs. Individuals without lawful status are barred from receiving Social Security retirement and disability benefits, even if they have contributed to the system through payroll taxes. They are also excluded from Supplemental Security Income for the aged, blind, and disabled, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), non-emergency Medicaid, and subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Over the years there have been some reinterpretations of some of the language in the original law.

The Immigration Reform bill that President Trump will send to Congress will spell out in detail which welfare programs are not available to Illegal Immigrants.

As part of Phase One, Vice President Vance should pull together a data base of Illegal Immigrants currently receiving unauthorized welfare payments from any part of the federal government. If an applicant for an AI Card is on that list they will be denied a card.

PHASE TWO, JANUARY FEBRUARY 2026

Every undocumented inhabitant in the U.S. will have the opportunity to report to an IAC registration site in the state where they reside in accordance with a published alphabetical schedule (last name beginning with A, B, C, or D report before the third week in January.

The first thing the IA Card facility will do is check the FBI data base. If the applicant has a criminal record from his home country, a felony conviction in the U.S. or is a known gang member, they will NEVER be eligible for an IA Card. This is an example of the specificity of the language that must be in the Immigration Reform Law; one strike and out.

The IA Card facility will also check the Welfare data base. If the applicant is currently receiving welfare checks they will be denied an IA Card.

Prior to appearing at the IA Card registration site, each applicant must download a Federal Form, Statement of Employment. fill it out and have it signed by their employer or if self-employed signed by a local official. The form must contain a statement of strong penalties for any employer signing a false statement. Registration fee for the IA Card is $50 per year.

The sophistication of the card will be similar to that of the Real ID card currently issued to U.S. citizens with the addition of an illegal ID number, similar to a social security number. Every illegal ID number will be sent to the IRS which will maintain the nation-wide list for tax purposes.

PHASE THREE, MARCH, 2026

Phase 2 registration is one-and-done and will never be repeated. That is, every illegal immigrant in the U.S. on 1 March 2026 will be either a documented legal holder of an IA Card or they are deportable. Holding an IA Card is, in effect, a temporary pardon from the crime of being in the U.S. illegally.

On 1 March 2026, any employer who employs an undocumented worker (no IA Card) will be subject to a fine of $25,000 for each worker, first offense; $50,000 each worker, second offense. No exceptions, no excuses. No employer is going to risk their livelihood over the employment of an illegal alien. Laws change behavior and add accountability of employers into the immigration solution.

This simple act of requiring illegal aliens to carry an IA Card will have four positive and immediate results:

First, employers will protect themselves from potentially heavy fines by only hiring inhabitants who have a valid IA Card.

Second, undocumented inhabitants who choose not to apply for an IA Card or were denied an IA Card will not be able to find an employer who will put them on the payroll. They will therefore be unemployable, will be unable to get welfare checks and will be constantly liable for deportation if detained for any reason; many will likely voluntarily return to their country of citizenship.

Third, foreigners contemplating illegal entry into the United States in order to work will soon learn that no employer is going to hire them and illegal entry will be futile. This inevitable behavior change will, by default, reduce illegal immigration to a trickle.

ICE federal agents will begin operations under Plan B. Any illegal immigrant without a valid, up-to-date IA Card is immediately deployable.

PHASE 4, JANUARY FEBRUARY, 2027

This phase begins the annual reissue of IA Cards; $50 fee. The card color will change each calendar year. ONLY (again, specificity in the law) those inhabitants holding an IA Card can receive a renewal card. Additionally, they will be denied renewal if they have been unemployed and made less than $5000, if they are illegally receiving welfare or if they have been convicted of a felony. Once denied, they will be detained, deported and never receive another card. Any IA Card that is not renewed by the annual renewal date will automatically be moved to the government’s deportation list.

FUNDING IMMIGRATION REFORM

In order to fund the Immigration Reform Law, a provision in the law will require IA Card holders to pay 10% Federal income taxes on earned income. Employers must issue a 1099 using the individual’s IA Card number to identify them to the IRS. The IRS will establish a National Registry of Card numbers and the data base will list earned income and taxes paid for the previous year. During the IA Card renewal process, the registration center will immediately access the IRS data base to determine if the applicant has in fact been employed, made at least $5000 and paid taxes. No tax records, no renewal and the applicant will be detained and deported. The Federal Government will retain 2% of the tax revenue to fund four national data bases for The Immigration Reform Plan B. The remaining 8% will be returned to the States in proportion to the number of IA Card holders to fund their IA Card processing centers.

Any IA Card holder convicted of a felony will have their card pulled, be detained and deported. That person’s file and IA Card number will be annotated at the national registries to ensure that any future attempts to reapply will be denied.

An IA Card holder who loses his or her job may immediately place an employment application to a National IA Card holder registry website maintained by the Department of Labor. This database will describe the IA Card holder’s skills and be broken down by zip code. An employer seeking to hire, for example, a carpenter has two options. One is to make direct contact with an IA Card holder; second is to review the Department of Labor national data base of unemployed IA Card holders.

FOUR NATIONAL DATA BASES

One maintained by the FBI of all illegal aliens with a criminal record.

Two, the data base of active IA Card holders maintained by the IRS.

Three, the data base of those illegal immigrants who are drawing on the welfare systems.

Four, the jobs-availability register at the Department of Labor.

IA CARD HOLDER PRIVILEGES

One, they may apply for a state vehicle operator’s license and will be tested in English. A provision of the law will be that every state must prominently display the individual’s IA Card number on the State Driver’s License. Additionally, every applicant must show proof of auto insurance.

Two, a current IA Card will authorize the holder to legally cross U.S. borders.

Three, legal holders may apply for an IA Card Dependent Card (using the sponsor’s IA Card number with a suffix) for their spouse and children (no extended family members). If granted, the sponsor will be authorized to escort the dependents across the U.S. border.

Four, after legally holding an IA Card for five consecutive years, that person is eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship for themselves and their immediate family (spouse and children).

CONCLUSIONS

Remember, these people are here illegally. Therefore, they will NOT be eligible for social security, welfare payments of any kind, food assistance programs, Medicaid, or social services. This will save hundreds of billions of dollars per year in federal and state assistance payments.

Is Plan B doable? Yes, it’s simple and it’s funded by the illegal aliens.

Plan B will readily identify illegal inhabitants who are currently a drain on Federal and State support systems and provide for their deportation.

If employers want foreign workers, they must become involved and accountable. Their only requirements are to hire IA Card holders and to report employee earnings to the IRS.

Plan B will assist in silencing anti-ICE demonstrators and blind-hatred Democrat leaders who are currently interfering with and threatening ICE federal agents.

For this immigration reform to work two things have to happen. First, the Congress has to pass a pure, non-watered down, straight-talk law with specificity that is not subject to interpretation by bureaucrats at the Federal, State or Local levels. Secondly, the Departments in the Executive Branch will need to develop high-speed, simple, secure, data bases that are immediately accessible by State and Local officials. We cannot afford to create a bungling bureaucratic morass like the current Immigration and Naturalization Service.

BOTTOM LINE

Any attempt to deport all of the millions of illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. is neither essential nor desirable.

Immigration reform is not about Democrat’s desire for amnesty-for-all or Republican’s closing the borders. It is about accountability and changing behavior.

Yes, deportation of the “worst of the worst” is a valid and essential concept of operations, but also is setting up the “best of the best” for eventual citizenship.

This should become a very high priority for the Trump Administration. Continuation of Plan A is threatening the lives of many of the 6,000 ICE agents and their leaders currently involved in deportation operations.

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired

UNITED STATES vs THE MEXICAN CARTELS

HEADLINES TODAY, 15 OCTOBER 2025:

“Cartels issuing bounties up to $50,000 for hits on ICE and Customs and Border protection (CBP) officers.”

Cartels currently have operators in all 50 states. Those operators have contact and probably some degree of control over foreign gangs active in our cities today; MS-13 for example. This cartel bounty initiative can simple be a money-making mission for the gangs. They can begin tonight.

Mr. President, it is time to act. Here is some background information and a concept of military operations for your review.

THE REAL STORY

Former President Biden tried to make us believe, “White supremacists are the most lethal threat to America.” That was just another diversional lie to the American people while Cartel drug kings were killing, on average, 294 mostly young Americans EVERY DAY in 2023 with drugs crossing the open southern border.

Fentanyl is the nation’s greatest and most urgent drug threat. Two milligrams (mg) of fentanyl are considered a potentially fatal dose. In 2023 the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) seized 29,048 pounds of fentanyl. Let’s do the math.

There are 453,592 milligrams in one pound. Two, just 2, milligrams are considered a potentially lethal dose. That’s 227,000 lethal doses in EACH of the 29,048 pounds seized. The unknown number is how many thousands of pounds were not seized.

Add to those horrific numbers the fact that in 2023 DEA also seized 79 million fentanyl pills and each pill tested in DEA laboratories averaged 2.4 mg of fentanyl, a potentially lethal dose.

The rest of the world also has a fentanyl problem but the Council on Foreign Relation reported that the U.S. had more fentanyl deaths in 2021 than the remainder of the world combined.

According to the DEA Administrator, Anne Milgram (2021-2025), the 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment tells us that “The shift from plant-based drugs, like heroin and cocaine, to synthetic, chemical-based drugs, like fentanyl and methamphetamine, has resulted in the most dangerous and deadly drug crisis the United States has ever faced.”

In four years, did you ever hear Biden discuss the dangers of Cartel exported drugs into the United States? Neither did I.

CARTEL BACKGROUND:

Mexican Cartels are a narco-terrorist organizations operating inside the U.S. and they are gaining ground every day.

The primary actors are the Sinaloa Cartel, for many years the most dominant drug trafficking organization in Mexico. Cartel Jalisco is the emerging power; engaged in drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, oil pipeline tapping and general criminal activity.

Additionally in the mix are the Los Zetas Cartel, Gulf Cartel and Juarez Cartel. All are engaged in holding their current territory and/or expanding their territory thus creating one of the most violent areas in the world today with an enormous impact on the Mexican economy and society as a whole.

A footnote to all of this is that fentanyl has changed everything. It is so profitable and can be moved in such small quantities thereby making the Cartels ever more empowered and enriched.

On 20 January after being sworn in as president, Trump named Tren de Aragua in Venezuela, MS-13 in El Salvador and six Mexican Carels as Foreign Terrorists Organizations.

By comparison, ISIS is a terrorist organization that took up lodging in Syria and Iraq and created a separate state from 2014 through 2017. The U.S. was instrumental in eliminating ISIS leaders and collapsing their caliphate. Could we, should we do the same to the Mexican terrorists Cartels?

RECENT U.S. AND MEXICAN LEADERSHIP

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in office from 2018 to 2024 executed a non-confrontational security strategy against some of the most violent organizations in the world. During his morning briefing on 28 February, 2023, he referred to his strategy as “hugs not guns. Here we do not produce fentanyl, and we do not have consumption of fentanyl.”

President Biden’s response to the narco-terrorists was, “the border is secure.” Let’s call it the head-in-the-sand security strategy. Both leaders were pathetic, disappointing, an insult to our intelligence and clearly in violation of their oaths of office.

On 7 March, 2023 Senator Lindsey Graham said he was prepared to introduce a bill in Congress to set the stage for the U.S. to use military force in Mexico. Two days later Lopez Obrador called any plan for U.S. military action against the Cartels, “irresponsible.”

On 13 March Lopez Obrador additionally commented, “Mexico is safer than the United States; there is no problem traveling safely in Mexico.” By the way, Mexico’s nationwide homicide rate at the time was 28 per 100,000 inhabitants while the U.S. was about one fourth that number.

The Biden administration never missed an opportunity to show off a confiscated shipment of drugs from Mexico. One event included more than 4.5 million fentanyl pills, 140 pounds of fentanyl powder, 3,000 pounds of methamphetamine and 135 kilograms of cocaine totaling a street value of roughly $13 million. That’s the good news. But the take-away from this comes from Anthony Coulson, a retired DEA special agent, who pointed out that. “A $13 million loss won’t stop the Sinaloa Cartel, first because it’s a drop in the bucket, and second, because this is to be expected. An insignificant loss such as this is just a normal part of their operation.”

What the Biden Administration did not do was speculate on the estimated quantity of drugs that actually got released illegally into the U.S.

CARTELS, HOW THEY OPERATE

The Cartels are violent organizations engaged almost continuously in turf battles with rival Cartels. Additionally, Cartels are known to use a portion of their vast profits to pay off judges, police, military and politicians. Should the individuals reject the bribe their families will likely be at risk of torture, kidnapping or worse.

U.S. gangs have an important role in Cartel operations. In 2024 the FBI reported there are at least 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs criminally active in the U.S. with about 1.4 million members. Many gangs are sophisticated and well organized; all use violence to control neighborhoods and boost their illegal money-making activities, which include robbery, drug and gun trafficking, prostitution and human trafficking.

The relationship between U.S. gangs and the Cartels is that the gangs represent an in-place nation-wide resource of foot soldiers for drug distribution and street sales.

Cartels excel at getting drugs over the border; then, for the most part, they cede operations in the U.S. to local or regional groups. The Drug Enforcement Agency’s 2024 Drug Threat Assessment reports that Mexican Cartels have operations in all 50 states.

Most of the illicit drugs entering the U.S. that are seized by authorities are discovered at the 300-plus official ports of entry. More than 90% of the Meth, fentanyl and heroin seized is at ports of entry.

THE FENTANYL TRIP

Fentanyl, which often gets mixed with heroin or cocaine is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine. It’s also cheaper to produce than either of those drugs.

Here’s how fentanyl gets from China to America’s streets; data taken from an article in the NEW YORK POST, February 18, 2023 by Michael Kaplan.

STEP 1: China to the west coast of Mexico.

Chinese chemists produce powdered chemicals known as “precursors” that are fentanyl’s building blocks. It is not unusual for the precursors to be packages looking like dog food.

Approximate value of the precursor, $200 per kilogram. One kilogram is 2.2 pounds. It is interesting to watch the price grow as the journey continues so they will be in bold type.

STEP 2: Mexico.

There is so much corruption at the ports that a couple hundred bucks will make authorities look the other way as chemicals are unloaded from China.

“Laboratory” is a glorified word for the Mexican fentanyl production facilities. Much of the fentanyl is brewed outdoors in pots over open flames where the “cook” tries to stay up-wind in order to live through the process The drugs get diluted, mixed with other chemicals and the final product is either powder or fentanyl pressed into pills that resemble pharmaceuticals or candy.

Approximate value per kilogram: $3,000 to $5,000 (depending on purity).

STEP 3: Crossing the border.

Drug dealers routinely stash the fentanyl in trucks, usually mixed in with other shipping products. With 200,000 vehicles crossing the Mexico/US border each day, it’s not difficult for the deadly cargo to slip through.

Approximate value per kilogram: $20,000

STEP 4: Urban hubs.

Once over the border, the idea is to quickly reach a drop-off spot. For example, before drugs enter New York City, there is often a distribution point where the trucker will rendezvous with smaller vehicles.

Approximate value per kilogram: $35,000

STEP 5: Drug mills.

Inside apartments, houses, garages, wherever it is convenient, fentanyl is cut with adulterants and sealed in glassine (smooth and glossy paper that is air, water and grease resistant) envelopes that contain single-sized doses. A crew of 12 can package 100,000 glassines in 24 hours. On the street a glassine packet becomes a $10 sale.

One glassine usually contains less than two milligrams of fentanyl. Keep in mind that there are about 28,000 milligrams in one ounce. Properly divided, one ounce of fentanyl can equate to about 14,000 lethal doses.

Approximate value per kilogram: $300,000

STEP 6: From the streets to the user.

This is where U.S. gangs become an important part of the Cartels’ distribution plan. Wholesalers’ pick-up glassine-enveloped goods from the drug mill and then meet up with their street dealers. Street dealers make approximately $2 for each $10 bag of fentanyl that they sell to their customers.

Approximate value per kilogram: $1 million; from $200 per kilogram leaving China to $1 million on U.S. streets killing about 300 Americans per day.

AUTHORITY TO USE THE U.S. MILITARY IN MEXICO

Can the U.S. use military force inside Mexico to defeat the Cartels? Former Attorney General William Barr, I assume after extensive research by his Justice Department staff, believes so. In 2020 he wrote;

“What will it take to defeat the Mexican Cartels?

First, a far more aggressive American effort inside Mexico than ever before, including a significant U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence presence, as well as select military capabilities. Optimally, the Mexican government will support and participate in this effort, and it is likely to do so once they understand that the U.S. is committed to do whatever is necessary to cripple the Cartels, whether or not the Mexican government participates.

Second, the danger Cartels pose to the U.S. requires that we confront them primarily as national-security threats, not a law-enforcement matter. These narco-terrorist groups are more like ISIS than like the American mafia. The only way to defeat them is to use every tool at our disposal inside Mexico.”

Constitutional War Powers (PPG), Article II, Section 2 grants the President the power to direct the military after a declaration of war by Congress.

Presidential Policy Guidance (PPG) on Procedures for Approving Direct Action Against Terrorist Targets Located Outside the United States and Areas of Active Hostilities. Put into place under the Obama administration, the PPG established standard operating procedures for circumstances when the U.S. takes direct action against terrorist targets outside of the US and outside of areas of active hostilities.

Article 51 of the United Nations Charter specifies that, “Nothing in this Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs.” The U.S. interpretation of the Charter recognizes three circumstances under which the use of force is permitted: 1) the use of force authorized by the UN Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter; 2) the use of force in self-defense, including against imminent attacks; and 3) the use of force in an otherwise lawful manner with the consent of the territorial state.

SOME EXAMPLES OF THE U.S. ENGAGING TERRORISTS IN FOREIGN NATIONS IN THE PAST

Somalia: Over the past 10 years U. S. military operations against al-Shabaab terrorists with the consent of the government of Somalia in furtherance of U.S. national self-defense.

Libya: Operations against Daesh terrorists were conducted 2015-2019 with the consent of the Government of National Accord in furtherance of U.S. national self-defense.

Yemen: Operations against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have been conducted since 2015.

Given the above, one could argue that the Cartels have become a clear and present danger to the United States and that Congress has acknowledged inherent executive power in accordance with the Joint Resolution passed by Congress on September 14, 2001 which states the President may deploy military force preemptively against terrorist organizations in the states that harbor or support them, whether or not they can be linked to the specific terrorist incidents of September 1

January, 2025, President Trump declared the cartels terrorist organizations.

During the campaign Trump said, “When I am president, it will be the policy of the United States to take down the cartels, just as we took down ISIS and the ISIS caliphate

CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS FOR THE USE OF U.S. MILITARY IN MEXICO

During his State of the Union address on 4 March President Trump did not mince words about the threat drug cartels pose, saying “The cartels are waging war on America, and it’s time for America to wage war on the cartels.”

Begin by defining the overarching Rules of Engagement, ROE.

Trust no one. Too many Mexican politicians, law enforcement and military at all levels are on the Cartels’ payroll, accepting bribes and/or living under threat of violence for themselves and their families.

Case in point: A former Mexican cabinet member, Garcia Luna, was convicted February 2023 in the U.S. for taking bribes to protect the violent drug Cartels. He has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Note he was convicted in the U.S., not in Mexico.

The second ROE is to secretly develop detailed strategic and tactical plans before any U.S. forces are introduced into Mexico.

Conduct Mexico-wide operations without a visible military foot-print inside Mexico. This may be very difficult.

Do all of this with, at least, tacit approval by Mexico’s new President Sheinbaum. This may be a difficult process. On 5 February,2025, the U.S. Attorney General published a memo for all Department of Justice employees announcing that President Donald Trump had issued a directive urging the federal government, “To revise existing national security and counter-narcotics strategies.” When apprised of this, Mexico’s President Sheinbaum responded during a news conference stating, “They (the U.S.) should start with their own country; of course, we are going to coordinate and collaborate, never subordination or interference; it is coordination.”

All of the planning and on into execution must be Close Hold in order to preserve and protect military operational security; Need-to-Know only. There will be no media briefs.

Presidents Trump and Sheinbaum should meet secretly and agree to this concept of operations for the benefit of both countries. The point of the meeting is for President Trump to assert to his Mexican counterpart President Sheinbaum, that her country is in serious trouble, her government has lost control of large sections of territory, it is getting worse, it is negatively impacting the U.S. and we have no intentions of having a narco-terrorists nation, the likes of ISIS, on our southern border. We are not asking for permission but very much want President Sheinbaum’s blessing and cooperation.

The internal U.S. Trump team should consist of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) Commander, CIA Director and the Director of National Intelligence.

Of course, there could be a very long list of senior government officials (Sec Def, Joint Chiefs, Secretary Homeland Security, Secretary of State, etc. etc.) who believe they should be included. But therein lies a big problem. Each would have subordinates working on remarks, power point slides, fact sheets, position papers, etc. Questions would be asked down the chains of command and within a few days thousands would be on the Close Hold, Need-to-Know list followed by headlines in the Washington Post, NY Times, CNN, etc. The Cartels would be ready and negative world opinion (China, Russia, etc.) would flood back to President Trump. .

President Trump then turns the meeting over to the JSOC Commander who will explain that tanks will not be rolling south, the 82^nd Airborne Division will not be parachuting into Sinaloa State, and we have no intention to subsume control of any Mexican territory.

Commander JSOC will go on to explain that the military footprint inside Mexico will be almost invisible. This will be a war fought at night by special operations forces; namely, Navy Seals, Marine Force Recon, Army Rangers, Army Special Forces and Army Delta Force. Mexicans will not see U.S. military vehicles patrolling their countryside, road blocks, checkpoints, or military formations attacking Cartel militias.

President Trump interjects to explain that what President Sheinbaum will see and hear is that Cartel leaders are missing, their chains of command are being killed and captured, incoming supplies and outgoing products are not on schedule, production facilities are disappearing and Cartels are blaming other Cartels for a takeover of their territory. This will allow Mexican military and law enforcement to go on the offensive and regain control of territory and generally reduce the violence.

The meeting will then be turned over to the Director of National Intelligence who will explain that every operational collection element of the U.S. intelligence inventory will be focused on Mexico. These intel capabilities will be temporarily placed under the operational control of a special intel task force for Operation Cartel. Of particular importance will be Humint, Human intelligence. Because of the decentralized, mom-and-pop production of fentanyl powder and tablets, we need a nation-wide Humint collection effort. Find a production facility today, take it out tonight. Find a collection point today, take it out tonight. Locate cartel leaders, at every level, today take them out tonight.

The Director of National Intelligence will go on to explain that every intel organization in the U.S. will be tasked to provide all of their individuals of Latin American heritage to be temporarily assigned to a CIA-led Operation Cartel task force for human intel collection. They will be given credentials for in-country personal security, inserted into communities all over Mexico, begin building local cells and reporting findings.

Drones of every size and capability will fill the sky; surveillance drones with real-time downlinks to Special Operations forces on the ground; drones armed with Hellfire missiles in the air and on station for immediate use by ground forces against high-value targets and targets of opportunity.

Tell President Sheinbaum that nothing that has been discussed during the meeting will be disclosed down her chain of command because of the likelihood that many of them have been compromised by violent threats from the Cartel leaders. The first ROE will be immediately applicable; trust no one.

The applicable elements of the U.S. government will begin immediately to transform the concept into a phased plan for execution of actionable intelligence. Every element will be placed under the operational control of the JSOC Commander for phase 1, planning (about six weeks) and throughout the execution phases. The intent is to begin operations with a Mexico-wide shock-and-awe attack on Cartel headquarters, production facilities, collection/distribution points and supply chains to immediately put the Cartels on their heels and in a defensive posture. Then increase the operational tempo to the maximum extent possible.

CONCLUSIONS

Mexico is in deep trouble. Cartels are gaining ground every day and there does not appear to be any aggressive counter-Cartel actions by President Sheinbaum.

Currently the U.S. has no counter-cartel plan. The U.S. and Mexico must help each other. We must take the initiative away from the Cartels and give Mexico’s law enforcement and military the confidence to wade in and finish the job.

While taking out the Cartels, the U.S. must completely rethink its operations at the 300-plus U.S. ports of entry. Over 90% of all the hard drugs confiscated is accomplished at the ports of entry. While that is good news, it also implies that there is such an enormous volume that gets through and on to the streets.

Going back to a previous note, the FBI reports there are about 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs criminally active in the U.S. today with about 1.4 million members. President Trump, the Justice Department, ICE and nation-wide law enforcement must become fully engaged to convince Mexico that we are fully committed to simultaneously clean up our own house.

We should continue President Trump’s initiatives to physically close our borders.

BOTTOM LINE

“Where there is a will, there is a way.” If the United States does not take positive overwhelming action to take out the Cartels, they will not only find a way to get their drugs into the U.S. and thereby continue their billion-dollar operations, but they will continue to expand their operational control throughout the United States.

With the post-Biden initiatives for change, for greater national security and for law and order, this concept of operations is now within the art of the possible.

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of two books, Vision to Execution and Fix the Systems, Transform America as well as the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.

PRESIDENT TRUMP, MOVE FORWARD WITH A “PHASE TWO” IN THE MIDDLE EAST

WHAT DOES “PHASE TWO” MEAN?

For the sake of simplicity let’s just call the entire Trump initiative to end the war between Israel and Hammas and the release of all prisoners, Phase 1. What that amazing initiative has also accomplished is to open the door a crack to the possibility of what President Trump has referred to as, “Strong, Durable and Everlasting peace in the Middle East.”

President Trump must lead Campaign Phase Two because the world now recognizes that he is capable and also realize that, as usual, the United Nations is incapable of doing anything.

THE MIDDLE EAST IS STILL A POTENTIAL TINDERBOX. BACKGROUND AND FACTS BEARING ON THE PROBLEM.

1979: Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has created a “proxy army” of more than a dozen militias and terror groups across the Middle East with outposts around the world to help foment instability, carry out attacks, and expand the scope of the Islamic Revolution. The most prominent are Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen and other Palestinian groups such as the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Generally, these terrorists’ organizations answer to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Cor3ps. Its special operations unit, the elite Quads Force, provides arms, training, and financial support to militias and political movements across the Middle East.

1984: Since 1984 Iran has been designated “the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism.” For four decades the Iranian leader has consistently articulated his twofold objectives; “destruction of Israel and “death to America”.

2017: The first Trump administration renewed UN sanctions on Iran and enforced them. Iran’s foreign currency reserves fell from $128 billion in 2015 to $15 billion in 2019. Iran’s capabilities and options were reduced and the U.S. was gaining ground in Middle East countries’ acceptance of Israel’s right to exist and prosper as a friendly neighbor. When Trump took office, he put the Houthi organization on the world terrorist list.

2021: Biden, immediately took the Houthis off the terrorist list for no reason other than to undo a Trump initiative For the Biden administration it was four years of appeasement towards Iran wherein Biden rewarded the Ayatollah to the tune of about $100 billion which presumably enhanced financing and weaponizing their proxy army terrorists.

2023-2025: In the first year of the Hamas invasion, they fired over 26,000 rockets and missiles into Israel, mostly at civilian targets. Additionally, Hezbollah fired over 10,000 rockets into Israel. The Houthi terrorists control Yemen and have conducted hundreds of attacks against regional targets in Saudi Arabia and during the Israel/Hamas war engaged shipping in the Red Sea and nearly shut it down. Iran demonstrated their force-projection capability by launching over 300 drones and missiles in a single failed attack against Israel. The point being, Iran is THE principal destabilizing force throughout the Middle East.

While Hezbollah calls the Middle East home, it has established an extensive Iran-supported terror infrastructure in Europe along with terror networks in Latin America and Africa that enables it to carryout international terrorist attacks.

Iran has the 3^rd largest world reserves of oil and the 2^nd largest reserves of gas. In 2024 their oil exports averaged 1.6 million barrels per day. In 2025 that has increased to 1.7 million per day. About 90% of their oil export is to China.

The UN is a toothless burearcracy and in its current configuration worthless with respect to their mission, “to achieve and maintain international security.”

January 2025, Iran and Russia signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement. The agreement encompasses a broad range of cooperation areas, including political and diplomatic relations, economic and trade partnerships, military and security collaboration, and energy cooperation.

Iran and China also have a 25-year strategic agreement addressing economic, military and security cooperation.

A LOOK AT THE PALESTINE SITUATION

As some would have you believe, the Palestinians are not one cohesive group waiting for Israeli genocide so they can move in and take the place of the Jewish state. “From the river (Jordan Rever) to the sea (Mediterranean Sea)” implies that Israel should cease to exist (Iran’s plan) and Palestine would consist of what is now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

About one half of the world’s Palestinian population continues to reside in Israel (250,000) the West Bank (870.000) and Gaza (1.4 million). Of the Palestinian population who live abroad, known as the Palestinian diaspora, more than half are stateless, lacking legal citizenship in any country. 2.3 million of the diaspora population are registered as refugees in neighboring Jordon, most of whom hold Jordanian citizenship. Over 1 million live between Syria and Lebanon about 750,000 live in Saudi Arabia and about half a million are outside of the Arab world.

CONCLUSIONS FROM THESE FACTS:

Let’s be honest about what Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis are; they are Iran trained, equipped and financed forward-deployed forces. Iran calls all the shots.

We and the remainder of the world have to take “negotiations” directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The U.S. must lead this effort because the United Nations is helpless and cannot lead any initiatives towards a productive end state.

Had the UN been active and successful in their mission to “maintain international peace and security”, we would not have had the Khamenei Regime in power for the last four decades. We would not have had Israel under threat or actually invaded continuously over the past five decades.

Iran has been, is currently and will continue to be THE problem in the Middle East and for the past three years the Biden Administration has supported that destabilization, thereby threatening Israel, threatening world-wide shipping lanes and de facto supported Iran’s nuclear and long-range missile capabilities.

BOTTOM LINE

Iran is the center of gravity in any effort to create a strong, durable and everlasting peace in the Middle East.

THE MIDDLE EAST CONTINUES TO BE AN UNCERTAIN MESS. CAN IT BE FIXED? YES.

President Trump has gained stature among world leaders because of his visionary proposal to end the Hamas/Israel War and his expertise in negotiations. Therefore, he must lead this endeavor.

During the first Trump administration, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, achieved visible success with his program called the Abram Accords. It was a successful effort to get a number of Middle East nations to consider closer relations with Israel and an effort towards peaceful coexistence. This is simply an indicator that a different, peaceful Middle East is within the art of the possible.

Most successful complex strategic plans begin at the end. That is, with a clearly defined end state. In this case, President Trump’s words, “A Strong, Durable and Everlasting peace in the Middle East” fits nicely.

Everlasting peace can become a reality but only if two actions can be accomplished. One, Iran must abandon the 40-year outspoken pledge to, “destroy Israel and death to America.”

Secondly, the continued existence of active terrorist groups inside the Middle East nations is a non-starter. As we build Campaign Phase Two, let’s see if It may be possible to starve out the terrorists rather than have to kill them.

CAMPAIGN PHASE TWO CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS

President Trump should speak personally with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Gatar to give them a heads-up on the forthcoming campaign and ask for their support to the campaign and to also begin convincing other Middle East nation that they should also get on board.

President Trump should capitalize on his current, well deserved, admiration and contact a large number of world leaders giving them a heads-up that he is seeking to create a strong, durable and everlasting peace in the Middle East. Ask for their uncompromising support as they are kept informed of progress and agree to participate as part of the coalition force against Iran and the terrorist organizations.

President Trump should immediately have a very frank discussion with the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres. Begin the conversation with a reminder of his mission to “maintain international peace and security” and the UN’s failure to actively seek to do so for decades. Tell him, not ask him, that as the campaign to achieve strong, durable and everlasting peace in the Middle East, there will be some specific tasks that the UN must perform quickly and firmly without reservation.

A LETTER TO AYATOLLAH ALI KHAMENEI, LEADER OF IRAN

Ayatollah, the Coalition leaders from across the world who have signed this letter to you have pledged their full support to achieving a strong, durable and everlasting peace in the Middle East.

You have two choices:

One, you can immediately and completely comply with every concession outlined below and eventually become an active member nation in a peaceful Middle East.

Or you can resist, non-comply with the demands and suffer the consequences outlined below. If your position is total noncompliance, the coalition will enter Iran with an overwhelming force, take down your government and destroy every element of your military establishment.

Be advised that you will soon see a massive coalition naval force operating in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

You have been for the past four decades the world’s leading sponsor of terrorist organizations. That must cease immediately. The demands are as follows:

FINANCIAL SUPPORT. A group of financial experts from the Coalition will arrive in Iran to examine your existing capability to financially support groups outside your borders. After their arrival, if it is determined that your government has provided a single dollar of financial assistance to any organization outside your borders there will be immediate consequences.

Here is one example. You are currently exporting about 1.7 million barrels of oil per day. We recognize that as a major financial support to your nation. Having determined that you continue to support terrorist organizations financially, the naval force in your area of operations will not allow 25% of the oil export vessels to depart Iran.

ISLAMIC REVOLUTIONARY GUARD CORPS. ITS SPECIAL OPERATIONS UNIT, THE ELITE QUDS FORCE

The Coalition believes the Quds Force supports non-state actors in many countries, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthi movement, and Shia militias in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. The Quds Force is a classic example of state-sponsored terrorism.

Therefore, the entire organization, all of its people, all of its liaison, all of its external activities must be immediately completely dissolved and shut down. Observers from the United Nations will soon be on site to observe and evaluate the depth of the dissolution.

Ayatollah, we are all aware that, over the past years, you have frequently denied UN observers access to nuclear activities. If that behavior occurs in this case, there will be an immediate additional 25% reduction in exported oil.

WEAPONS PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION.

A joint operation conducted by the Israel Security Agency and the Israel Defense Forces, recently foiled a major weapons smuggling attempt from Iran aimed at supplying terrorist groups in Judea and Samaria in the West Bank.

The Coalition demands that you immediately shut down the manufacture of every weapons system and drone production. The facilities will not only cease operations but they will be rendered incapable of ever being operational again.

It is believed that as of this past summer your oil refinery capability increased to 2.4 million barrels per day. Failure to immediately cease weapons and drone production will cause the Coalition to order the off-shore naval forces to destroy 50% of your refinery capability.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND LONG-RANGE MISSILE CAPABILITY

You have no use for nuclear weapons or the capability for long-range delivery. On-going operations for both will cease immediately and equipment and facilities for both will be totally destroyed or permanently moved out of country.

United Nations inspectors will be given 100% access to all facilities. Failure to provide access and/or to destroy all production capability will result in overwhelming Coalition ground forces entering Iran to verify compliance.

COALITIONS CAN BE EFFECTIVE

Ayatollah, you will of course recall August 1990 when Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces attacked, defeated and occupied their neighbor Kuwait with what Saddam Hussein used to brag was the “Mother of all Armies.”

The United States put together a coalition of 39 countries, of which 28 contributed combat forces.

Force size: Approximately 670,000 troops from 28 countries, 425,000 of which were from the United States.

Coalition air component size: 2,500 combat aircraft, 1,800 of which were American.

Coalition airlift: 509,000 passengers and 594,000 tons of cargo carried.

Coalition sorties flown: 100,000 plus.

Aerial refueling: 15,400 sorties dispensed 110 million gallons of fuel.

Number of dumb bombs dropped: 210,000.

Number of smart bombs dropped: 9,300.

30mm depleted uranium rounds fired by A-10 manned aircraft (tank-killers): 782,000.

Duration of air campaign before the ground invasion: 39 days.

Iraqi tanks lost during the war: 3,700 out of 4,300 oh hand.

Number of U.S. Carrier Battle Groups on station: 6.

Coalition POWs taken during the war: 26.

Iraqi POWs taken during the war: 70,000 plus.

U.S. combat related deaths: 147

Iraqi military deaths: 100,000 plus.

Ground war duration: 100 hours

Ayatollah, these numbers should convince you that if you resist this initiative, you, your government, your forward deployed terrorist organizations, and your destabilization of the entire Middle East are going down hard and fast.

The Coalition’s Rules of Engagement will be to always minimize collateral damage and attempt to have zero civilian casualties.

Ayatollah, here is a recent quote from your people, ““We, the Iranian people, are exhausted. We don’t want war, we don’t want sanctions, and we don’t even want a ceasefire. We just want to live in peace in the country we love.” Of your 92 million Iranians, it is highly possible that the majority of them have this same simple desire for peace. That is what this Coalition is supporting.

Our advice to you is to stand down right now, take your loyalists with you and turn the government over to the peace-loving Iranians who want to be part of a peace-loving Middle East.

(Coalition Leaders’ signatures)

Mr. President, you are on a roll. Make this happen.

And, oh by the way Mr. President, while you are at it:

Should there be a follow-on Phase Three? Yes.

Can there be a follow-on Phase three? Yes, and now is the time.

Is there a detailed concept of operations already prepared for Phase Three? Yes.

it’s called CAMPAIGN WORLD PEACE FOREVER.

Last published on WeThePeopleSpeaking.com February 2025

PS, without Iran’s total support, terrorist organizations will not be firing tens of thousands of rockets into civilian areas. But if they do survive Phase Two, they absolutely will not survive Phase Three.

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA as well as the author of a blog WeThePeopleSpeaking.com

HEADLINE: PRESIDENT TRUMP MAY USE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN TO REDUCE GOVERNMENT SIZE AND SPENDING. NO, NO, BIG MISTAKE!

YES, THE GOVERNMENT IS TOO BIG AND CONSTANTLY WASTES HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF TAXPAYER MONEY.

A mammoth, sprawling, uncontrollable federal government was never the vision or intent of the founding fathers. Organizations have a propensity to grow to a point of diminishing returns; it ceases to be efficient, effective and/or no longer performs the functions for which it was created. At that point a large organization will tend to look inward and become self-perpetuating rather than value added.

Some or all of that applies today to the Departments in the Executive Branch of the federal government; too big, too ineffective. And more importantly, the annual President’s Budget boils up out of this massive organization. Every government-funded program is maintained and sustained inside these bureaucracies.

TWO WAYS TO FIX THIS PROBLEM, TOP-DOWN OR BOTTOM-UP

Since the government shutdown, President Trump has said he will work with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Russel Vought, to cut the size of government and spending.

OMB’s mission is to, “prepare the President’s federal budget and assist in managing the performance of federal agencies.” If the OMB attempts to take on the President’s government-shut-down downsizing, it will necessarily be a top-down operation; one that has been used for decades, has been and will continue to be a failed concept of operations.

Elon Musk’s DOGE was effective at identifying and tracking huge government/Congressional spending but their general Executive Branch downsizing plan was a complete bust; top-down. Their concept of operations was to have government employees, “explain in writing what you accomplished last week.” From that, somehow draw conclusions leading to decisions as to their viability. Ill-conceived and completely ineffective. OMB will not be any more effective than DOGE was.

BOTTOM-UP EXECUTIVE BRANCH CONCEPT IS A PERFECT FIT

President Trump can cause this to be completed in the next 2-3 months. Put Vice President Vance in charge.

Vance will direct every Department and Agency to have their Deputy Secretary/Director set up an internal small Government Reduction Task Force.

Each task force will draw a detailed organization diagram with “boxes” down to the lowest level. They will direct the leader of every “box” in the org diagram to immediately submit a ONE-PAGE answer to three questions.

One: What is you mission? When formed 25 years ago it may have been important but absolutely worthless today.

Two: What is the originating document; a law, a regulation, Executive Order, internal senior leader directive, etc.? If the mission is no longer essential, the originating document can also be eliminated; deregulation.

Three: What is your day-to-day value added to the Department/Agency.

The task force will immediately evaluate every input and come to a conclusion; it needs to be completely eliminated immediately. Or they may see some value in the mission but it can be incorporated into the mission of another “box”, etc.

The Vice President will visit frequently for an in-progress review to insure they are serious about downsizing.

This can all take place in a few weeks and there will be three important accomplishments:

One: Entire subordinate organizations inside the Department/Agency will be deleted. Eliminate dead-wood.

Two: Deleting the element deletes the originating document; deregulating is one of President Trump’s priorities.

Three: The overall President’s Budget is the sum of the thousands of sub-elements throughout the Executive Branch. The budget for these thousands of deleted sub-elements and the tens of thousands of employees inside them will no longer exist in he budget.

CONCLUSIONS

Bottom-up downsizing makes sense. Accomplishes downsizing in a viable, understandable operation, eliminates the correct employees and automatically reduces the size of the President’s Budget. OMB cannot do this in a few days while the government is shutdown.

There is also a states’-rights issues in all of this. As the federal government grows a natural outcome is that they over-reach into areas that are better and more effectively handled at the local and/or state level. Federal over-reach tends to result in a one-size-fits-all approach to problem solving and it is usually ineffective and inefficient.

BOTTOM LINE

Downsizing is very important but adding it in to the government shut-down issue will not get us where we want to be, need to be.

SECRETARY HEGSETH’S 30 SEPTEMBER PRESENTATION……RE DO

Note to subscribers: Sorry, yesterday I published in haste my thoughts on Hegseth’s presentation. He mentioned that the U.S. military’s warfighting abilities should be the goal. He also mentioned the First Gulf War capabilities but did not go into any detail. The details associated with the First Gulf War are mind-blogging. Therefore, I have included them in this addition beginning with the paragraph, HOW GOOD CAN OUR MILITARY BECOME? Also, the final paragraph on what President Trump should do next is new.

This is 30 September and this morning Secretary Hegseth addressed, in person, about 800 assembled senior U.S. military leaders from all over the world. It was certainly one of, if not THE MOST OUTSTANDING, leader presentations ever. Recommendation, don’t read it, watch it on U-Tube to get the full effect.

If asked to summarize the thrust in a couple words, I would say it was about standards for war fighting and the totality of the culture that can make it happen.

ABOUT “STANDARDS” IN GENERAL (what Pete did not tell you)

“An organization without standards is a failed organization.” Unfortunately, the best and most visible example of this is the U.S. Congress. And we the people know this because in every type of poll taken about organizations, our Congress is always dead last.

The U.S. military had lost its way in the 1970’s. In the mid 1980’s a small group of general officers in key positions in the U.S. Army decided it must get fixed. First was a herculean effort to identify the applicable war-fighting TASKS for every MOS, military occupational specialty (infantryman, artilleryman, medic, intelligence, aviation etc. etc. etc.). And do it for each grade; junior enlisted, a brand-new sergeant, mid-level sergeants, senior sergeants and all officer grades. It was volumes. Then they had to identify different CONDITIONS if it impacted the task. The simplest example is a particular task would be significantly impacted in daytime vs night and have a standard for each.

Having all that information on hand, they then set about to establish a STANDARD for each task under an identified condition. We, the U.S. Army, changed everything about how to train and lead by 1990 (the example Pete used) we were without a doubt the most highly trained fighting force in the world. Pete also mentioned The First Gulf War1992 as a perfect example of what a force that highly trained can accomplish in a very short time.

‘TASKS, CONDITIONS, STANDARDS’ became the Holy Grail for building an unmatched war-fighting machine.

WAR DEPARTMENT SECRETARY PETE HEGSETH HITS A HOME RUN

This is 30 September, and this morning Secretary Hegseth addressed, in person, about 800 assembled senior U.S. military leaders from all over the world. It was certainly one of, if not THE MOST OUTSTANDING, leader presentations ever. Recommendation, don’t read it, watch it on U-Tube to get the full effect.

If asked to summarize the thrust in a couple words, I would say it was about standards for war fighting and the totality of the culture that can make it happen.

ABOUT “STANDARDS” IN GENERAL (what Pete did not tell you)

“An organization without standards is a failed organization.” Unfortunately, the best and most visible example of this today is the U.S. Congress. And we the people know this because in every type of poll taken about organizations, our Congress is always dead last.

Then they had to identify different CONDITIONS if it impacted the task. The simplest example is a particular task would be significantly impacted in daytime vs night and have a standard for each.

Having all that information on hand, they then set about to establish a STANDARD for each task under an identified condition. We, the U.S. Army, changed everything about how to train and lead by 1990 (the example Pete used) we were without a doubt the most highly trained fighting force in the world. Pete also mentioned The First Gulf War 1992 as a perfect example of what a force that highly trained can accomplish in a very short time.

“TASKS-CONDITIONS-STANDARDS” became the Holy Grail for building an unmatched war-fighting machine.