Category: war

A Questionable Strategy

     In days long gone by, the recognized and acknowledged path to victory in war was the capture of the opponent’s sovereign. Indeed, that was the main reason kings led their own armies into battle: to give the enemy a fair shot at him, under the assumption that the enemy would reciprocate. It was also …

Continue reading

Never-Ending Wars

     War has been part of the human condition for millennia. That’s not an endorsement, just an observation of the historical facts. You’d think, after so many centuries of bloody strife, we’d have learned something about how to avert it. After all, it takes lives, destroys wealth, and leaves giant messes for the survivors to …

Continue reading

Whose Side Are We On

     I can’t help but wonder:      The Biden administration’s intensive public and private campaign to forestall Israel’s assault on Rafah has become its toughest test to date with its Middle East ally.      Hours after President Biden on Monday warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against a full-scale assault on Rafah, Israel’s military conducted …

Continue reading

Unspeakable Or Unthinkable Part 2: An Amoral Calculus

     As my Gentle Readers might have expected, I received quite a lot of feedback on the previous piece. I wasn’t surprised by the tone of it. Disappointed, perhaps, but not surprised.      The mass warfare of World War II, in which many thousands of noncombatants died, should have taught us something. The atomic bombings, …

Continue reading

Unspeakable Or Unthinkable?

     There are things that must be said. Some of those things are terrible to contemplate. Fortunately, there are a few people, at least, who are willing to say them. I aspire to be numbered among them.      Just now, the premier speaker of the unspeakable is Tucker Carlson:      For those who don’t watch …

Continue reading

Good Guys And Bad Guys

     “The first casualty when war comes is truth and whenever an individual nation seeks to coerce by force of arms another, it always acts, and insists that it acts in self-defense” – Locomotive Engineers Journal, February 1929      In high school, I had an American History teacher who opened his class on the subject …

Continue reading

Realism In War

     I hope the shade of the late, great Ursula Le Guin won’t mind the following longish excerpt from her short novel The Word For World Is Forest:      “In Rieshwel, New Java. Fourteen days ago. A town was burned and its people killed by yumens of the Camp in Rieshwel.”      “It’s a lie. …

Continue reading

A Question With An Unpleasant Answer

     Now that I’m caught up on my obligations, let’s address a painful question. It’s often been asked over the years. It’s painful because the most accurate answer to it is unpleasant. It just cropped up at Gab: Do the PEOPLE – of ANY Country – Really WANT WAR?      And the answer is: Yes, …

Continue reading

Agreements Between Nations

     John Mills at Gateway Pundit has posted a piece on treaties and their utility, with particular emphasis on the post-Cold War world. It’s a good piece well worth reading, which reminds us that treaties themselves cannot and will not guarantee peaceful relations between nation-states. It got me to thinking about a subject that’s been …

Continue reading

To Those Who Think The UN Is Worth Something

     Ponder this:      United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres invoked Article 99 of the U.N. charter on Wednesday for the first time. He cited a “severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza” as the war rages on between Israel and the militant group Hamas….      Guterres has called for a ceasefire.      …

Continue reading

The Biggest Picture

     The exchanges of rhetoric over the IDF invasion of Gaza have already breached the ludicrousness threshold and are rocketing toward utter insanity. The tweet embedded here lays the matter out plainly. And as I said immediately below that, wars of extermination have no rules.      No amount of hand-wringing will change the fundamentals here. …

Continue reading

Give No Quarter To Those Who Seek Your Blood (UPDATED)

     I was pleased to read this, from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:      While Israel is doing everything to get Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way, Hamas is doing everything to keep Palestinian civilians in harm’s way. Israel urges Palestinian civilians to leave the areas of armed conflict, while Hamas prevents those civilians from …

Continue reading

What’s Coming

     A few nights ago, some friends asked for my predictions about what’s going on in the Middle East. Specifically, they wanted to know “How big will it get?” I led off with the old mutual-fund disclaimer: “Past performance is no guarantee of future returns.” A prognostication must stand independently of its prognosticator. No matter …

Continue reading

The Sovietization of the USSA continues

Maybe if Hunter Biden had posted memes instead of snorting rails of coke off a Russian hooker’s ass, the DOJ would have been interested in him. HA! I kid, we all know the DOJ is just the Democrat Party’s new Gestapo. The humorless hacks at the misnamed Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) just sentenced a …

Continue reading

The Chronicle of The DC, 22Sep23: Spurring Cancers

When you, dear readers, feel the urge to wave off my efforts as “there he goes again,” imagine what it was like for my kids. OTOH, they appeared to take my warnings seriously. I sincerely hope you do too.

Commitment

You don’t really need to find out What’s going on You don’t really want to know Just how far it’s gone Just leave well enough alone Keep your dirty laundry [Don Henley]      I don’t generally watch long videos, and the one below is over 25 minutes. But I watched it from end to end. …

Continue reading

The Chronicle of The DC, 24 Aug 23: Fomenting Toxicities [Updated]

The same city that tolerates homelessness and welcomes illegals who add to it, could not be clueless as to the public health degradation that had to come with it. The city of Los Angeles will issue a citation for washing one’s car in one’s driveway. The object was to penalize addition of untreated soap which …

Continue reading

The Chronicle of the DC: 17Aug23 Maui

Please point out — to anyone who will listen — the Sustainability agenda of every major Western institution. It’s a religion with them. Their moral code is not that of decent human beings. To these neo-pagan Sustainability worshippers, sacrificed human life is what is sacred to them. The Progressive Movement — with its Sustainability priests …

Continue reading

The Chronicle of The DC: 14Aug23 Speeding Things Up

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green warns ’10 to 20′ more Lahaina wildfire victims will be found dead each day as just 3% of the search area has been scoured – and says around 1,300 people are still missing To which Brandon added his “grace” note:

The death of America (Long live America!)

Back on the ye oldde Goolag blog, I had a tag that I used quite a bit called “The Death of America”, highlighting all the various ways that this country was dead and gone. A zombie, shambling around with no brain, no heart and no soul. Yesterday, our host asked if we were awake yet. …

Continue reading

Load more