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 …
Category: war
Jul 25 2024
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 …
May 07 2024
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 …
Apr 27 2024
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, …
Apr 26 2024
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 …
Apr 15 2024
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 …
Mar 25 2024
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. …
Mar 04 2024
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, …
Feb 27 2024
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 …
Dec 07 2023
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. …
Nov 03 2023
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. …
Nov 01 2023
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 …
Oct 25 2023
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 …
Oct 19 2023
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 …
Sep 22 2023
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.
Sep 18 2023
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. …
Aug 24 2023
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 …
Aug 17 2023
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 …
Aug 14 2023
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:
Aug 11 2023
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. …
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