Author: Keith Smith

Response to Op-Ed ‘Illegitimate Institution’

The following article is a response to an Op-Ed titled The Supreme Court: An Illegitimate Institution by Yomar Aguilar published in the Holtville Tribune and Calexico Chronicle.

In the May 5, 2022, opinion piece published in this paper titled The Supreme Court: An Illegitimate Institution, the author made several assertions that I wish to challenge – beginning with his claim that the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is an “illegitimate institution.”… Read More Response to Op-Ed ‘Illegitimate Institution’

Keith Smith

Book Review: The Strange Career of Jim Crow “Historical Bible of the Civil Rights Movement”

During the tumultuous times of the American civil rights movement of the 1950s a work emerged that challenged and eventually helped transform the historical narrative on interracial relations in the South. C. Vann Woodward’s The Strange Career of Jim Crow was born of the author’s concern that at the time the current national discussion regarding race relations and segregation laws in the American South was “being conducted against a background of faulty or inadequate historical information.” With that in mind, in 1955 Woodward published what had begun as… Read More Book Review: The Strange Career of Jim Crow “Historical Bible of the Civil Rights Movement”

Keith Smith

Citizen Soldiers: Militia in the American Revolution

Although it was largely fought on Breed’s Hill, the battle became known as the Battle of Bunker Hill. The New Englanders who defended the earthen redoubt on Breed’s Hill overlooking Boston came from a variety of backgrounds. Many were farmers and tradesmen. Others were sailors or laborers. Men and boys of European, African, and Native American descent stood side by side, with sweat on their brows, as British cannonballs crashed into the dirt that protected them. They stared down at 2,000 redcoats advancing uphill towards the redoubt. Colonel William Prescott, wearing a red waistcoat, blue stockings, and a light-colored banyan, or robe, stood on the dirt wall and told the men to hold their fire. In the few hours that followed this scene of anticipation, the British forced the New Englanders to retreat from the redoubt, but only after the King’s troops suffered 226 killed and another 828 wounded.

The everyday men and boys who served in colonial militias during the Revolutionary War played a vital and often overlooked role in the conflict. They came from all walks of life and varied in age from teenagers to men in their sixties. Many were farmers and their sons, others were apprentices, tradesmen, or merchants. They came from a storied tradition going back to… Read More Citizen Soldiers: Militia in the American Revolution

Keith Smith

Ukraine War: Russian Comms Update (Day 118)

Ukraine State Security Service continues to intercept Russian communications and post excerpts on its YouTube channel. If the intercepts are accurate, the situation for Russian federation forces on the front line is anything but ideal. Among other things, Putin’s troops complain of poor rations, living under constant artillery bombardment, and refusal to follow orders. The audio also confirms that Russians continue to commit war crimes in eastern occupied territories. Following are excerpts of Russian comms from the last… Read More Ukraine War: Russian Comms Update (Day 118)

Keith Smith

Stalin, FDR, and the Truth about U.S. Lend Lease Aid to the USSR

U.S.-Soviet relations prior to U.S. involvement in World War II, in particular the relationship between President Franklin Roosevelt and Stalin, are often overlooked. FDR proposed the idea of assisting the Soviet Union a full nine months before Pearl Harbor after he received intelligence that a German attack on the USSR was imminent. After Operation Barbarossa began, there were many in the President’s administration and Congress who thought it a big gamble to aid the Russians with one Soviet city after another falling to the Wehrmacht during the summer 1941. Ultimately the President was able to convince Congress that it was worth the risk… Read More Stalin, FDR, and the Truth about U.S. Lend Lease Aid to the USSR

Keith Smith

Unsung Heroes: The 81st Infantry Division “Wildcats” at Angaur and Peleliu

Operation Stalemate II has gone down in history as one of the bloodiest and most controversial American actions in the Pacific during World War II. The fighting on Peleliu is enshrined in Marine Corps history as one of its most difficult and savage battles. Today Peleliu rightly holds a place alongside Iwo Jima and Tarawa in Corps lore. The taking of “Bloody Peleliu” is inexorably associated with the 1st Marine Division. Contemporary film productions, such as the HBO miniseries The Pacific, as well as History Channel programs and others have highlighted the efforts and losses of the Marines on Peleliu. The campaign, while joint service in nature, was planned and commanded primarily by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Consequently, the first widely read narratives on the subject were those produced by Navy and Marine Corps commanders, whose works were naturally tainted by their own bias, perspective, and experiences. These factors have cemented the role of the Corps in the campaign in the minds of many lay historians. While the Marine Corps has received well deserved acclaim for its performance in the Palau Islands operations, the equally significant contributions of the U.S. Army in the same campaign have on the contrary been relegated to almost anecdotal status. Without the often ignored yet significant contributions of Army units, specifically the 81st Infantry Division, success in Operation Stalemate II would have been impossible.… Read More Unsung Heroes: The 81st Infantry Division “Wildcats” at Angaur and Peleliu

Keith Smith

Ukraine War: Interview with Ukrainian Head of Military Intelligence – Kirill Budanov

Ukrainskaya Pravda reporter Roman Kravets recently interviewed Kirill Budanov, Head of the Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense Intelligence Directorate. Appointed in 2020, Budanov has risen to become one of the most influential and authoritative sources of information about the war, cited in many international news articles. He was one of only a few Ukrainian government officials who publicly warned of imminent large-scale war with Russia starting last year, including the directions from which Russia could attack. He has been proven correct in his predictions thus far. In this rare intimate interview Budanov speaks about Vladimir Putin’s health, possible coup attempts in Russia, why the Ukrainian government did not better prepare the country for war, and his predictions for how the war will end among other topics. The following are English translation excerpts of the interview.… Read More Ukraine War: Interview with Ukrainian Head of Military Intelligence – Kirill Budanov

Keith Smith1 Comment

Ukraine War: Russian Comms Update

Ukrainian State Security continues to intercept and publish audio of intercepted communications between Russian servicemen in Ukraine and family members in Russia. The nature of the topics discussed in these calls varies from talk about the commission of potential war crimes to insubordination and mutiny. Intercepts posted portray the occupying Russians in a negative light; however, this is to be expected given the source and the… Read More Ukraine War: Russian Comms Update

Keith Smith

Book Review: Ostkrieg

In the words of Stephen Fritz, the author of Ostkrieg: Hitler’s War of Extermination in the East, his work is “a synthesis, an integrated narrative based primarily on exhaustive research by German, British, and American historians over the past two or three decades.”[1] I found this to be case as Fritz drew heavily from the work of well-established World War II historians such as Antony Beevor, Robert Citino, Adam Tooze, Karl-Heinz Frieser, and David Glantz (whose work the author referenced 191 times, mainly Barbarossa). The aim of the author, again in his own words, was to “provide a deeper understanding of the complexity and immensity of the Ostkrieg by… Read More Book Review: Ostkrieg

Keith Smith