Before cruise missiles rained down on a Syrian airfield Thursday night, Oliver North could have predicted the event in his speech in San Angelo yesterday.
Retired Lt. Col. Oliver North, a central figure in the late-1980s Iran-Contra Affair and now a Fox News on-air celebrity, spoke at the McNease Convention Center yesterday at the annual luncheon for the Laura W. Bush Institute for Women’s Health. The 45-minute speech was well received and was followed by a 15-minute Q&A with Goodfellow Air Force Base’s 17 TRW commander, Brigadier General-Select Michael Downs.
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Above: BG-Select Michael Downs, 17 TRW Commander at Goodfellow AFB, conducts a Q&A with Oliver North in San Angelo on April 6, 2017. (LIVE! Photo/Joe Hyde)
North said the subject of his speech was “situational awareness,” or SA. SA is a military term describing the mindset of American fighting men and women to be aware of their surroundings at a high enough degree to act upon them to control future events. Air Force pilots are graded on “SA” in training, for example.
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Above: BG-Select Michael Downs, 17 TRW Commander at Goodfellow AFB, conducts a Q&A with Oliver North in San Angelo on April 6, 2017. (LIVE! Photo/Joe Hyde)
North gave a number of vignettes involving himself in awkward situations with his wife Betsy, or as a celebrity at crowded airports to explain SA. Sprinkled in there were stories of behind-the-scenes actions of the modern U.S. armed forces that Fox News pays him to cover. North has made about 60 trips to the hot war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.
North also read the tea leaves for what the future holds for U.S. foreign policy in his opinion. National security policy is being driven by external factors, North said. Chief among them was Iran and North Korea’s collusion on building nuclear weapons and missile systems to deliver a nuclear attack.
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Above: The McNease Convention Center was packed with about 700 in attendance to see Lt. Col. Oliver North on April 6, 2017. (LIVE! Photo/Joe Hyde)
“It is an existential threat to this country,” North said. “ISIS is a threat, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not an existential threat to the United States of America. Nuclear devices in the hands of ‘crazies’ are an existential threat.”
North explained that the demographics around the world also contribute to how the U.S. formulates its national security policy.
“The reality is, the Europeans and Japanese are losing population. Demographics matter when it comes to recruiting good people for the armed forces,” he said.
North pointed out that Germany is the only European country gaining in population because of inflows of immigration.
He said, “But the immigrants they are getting don’t assimilate into their culture, and it’s causing problems.”
Russia, North said, is also losing population, with a birth rate of 1.6. “The only thing Russia exports are weapons, carbon, and its women,” North said. To maintain a population without immigration into a land, a country must maintain 2.1 live births per couple.
Majority male populations pose a military threat, North said. Those nations are more likely to go to war, which is why many countries in the Middle and Far East are tinderboxes. In China and India, there are 72 million men who will never find a mate.
“Historically, going as far back as Genghis Khan, a country with more men than women will reach out in what is called war,” North said.
Additionally, North said that, in the U.S., the birth rate for Anglo-Americans is approximately 1.7, indicating a shrinking population. Yet, the population of the U.S. is estimated to grow over the next decade by about 2.2 million per year because of immigration.
“Immigrants come to this country and stay. They want this country to grow and prosper. Forget about the arguments about walls and stuff like that. This country isn’t growing without immigration,” he said. In contrast, think about the countries to where no one immigrates, or to where no one wants to move, he suggested. “No one wants to immigrate to Russia,” North said.
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Above: James Powell, who served on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Oriskany during the Korean War era, gets a book signed by Oliver North in San Angelo on April 6, 2017. (LIVE! Photo/Joe Hyde)
Overall, the convention center was packed at the $125 per ticket event. The Central High School Culinary Arts program served a chicken pastry dish with asparagus. The money raised finances for the Laura W. Bush Foundation’s efforts to improve women’s health.
North remained afterwards to sign copies of his books and to speak to many from the audience in person.
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