History in Three Hard Lesson -Unlearnt

“Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.” - Edmund Burke


The Young British Soldier By Rudyard Kipling

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!

Who will be the poet of the current Afghan war? God save our (and the British and the other remaining Armies) Soldiers who continue to fight there.

The attempt to bring some degree of order in the Modern sense to Afghanistan has been abandoned by the Administration and by opinion makers on both the left and the right. And yet, we maintain a Military presence there that is scheduled to continue until at least 2014. What is the strategic objective? What are the operational goals for the next couple of years? Troops remain to support the fiction of a successful transition to Afghan control.

But, according to an article in the NY Post by Paul Sperry of the Hoover Institution  the people who are closest to the truth know that there is no truth in that:

"A 2011 Army survey found that “on average, US soldiers perceived that 50% of (the) ANA (Afghan National Army) were Islamic radicals” vulnerable to Taliban recruitment. The results were reported in an unclassified study titled, “A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility.” It quotes one American soldier as saying, “A reporter attached to my platoon said that during a conversation with ANA soliders, they said that if the Taliban began to win the war, they would switch sides and join the Taliban.” "


They know the truth: The last four years and the next two have only one purpose: to avoid the obvious: Obama surrendered; and any progress that had been made will be lost within months of our eventual departure.

The Afghans know the truth too:

'“The fate of the Americans in Afghanistan will be worse than that of the Russians,” Mohammed Ismail Khan warned in 2009. The same Afghan is now vowing to drive all “foreigners” out of Afghanistan.


"More bluster from a Taliban leader? Hardly. Khan serves as Afghanistan’s energy minister, and is a key member of American ally Hamid Karzai’s cabinet."

This is Groundhog Day for the Afghan war lords.

"Khan has lethal experience launching such attacks. In March 1979, Khan, then a captain in the Afghan army, orchestrated the murder of 50 Soviet military advisers and 300 of their family members in Herat Province. He decapitated many of them and had their heads paraded on spikes through the city. "

So, the Afghan government's cabinet knows what is about to happen, and aren't even hiding their anticipation. What about the rational, Modern leaders of the Free World?

"The US military seems to be in denial about the breadth and scope of theinternal threats it faces in Afghanistan. While on the one hand it warns that the “major problem confronting the Soviets was the unreliability of the Afghan army,” it nonetheless appears Polyannish about its own prospects for partnering with the Afghan army. “U.S. forces can gain keen insights and lessons from the Soviet 10-year occupation of Afghanistan,” the Army handbook asserts. The same document goes on to claim that “in contrast” to the Soviet experience, “the United States and CF (coalition forces) have achieved great success in training and partnering with our ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces) counterparts.”"

If it doesn't get printed in a newspaper, it isn't news, right?

Apparently the Washington Post thinks so. The threat to religious freedom isn't news, because, according to the WaPo, there is no threat.

I stumbled across this story, celebrating the election of a Hindu woman and a Buddist woman to Congress. Wonderful. Of course, they are both Democrats, which makes it more wonderful still for the WaPo writers. What the article chiefly celebrates is the decline of White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants in government and in America at large. With no real reason why this is worth celebrating except diversity is inherently good.

The author, Charles C. Haynes claims, "in 2012, religious minorities became newly visible and vocal in a society historically dominated by the symbols, values and leaders of the Protestant faith," but fails to mention the protests of the most visible, most vocal religious minority: the Catholic and Christian protests against erosion of religous liberty under ObamaCare and other HHS mandates. Must not be news when bishops, cardinals, universities, orders of religious, hospitals and even the Pope publicly oppose the policies of the current administration.

Nope. "The growing visibility and strength of America’s religious diversity is good news for religious freedom. The First Amendment affords legal protections, but it cannot fully prevent people in the majority from imposing social discrimination and political exclusion on those in the minority." The big news is that a couple of Democrats who are not Episcopalian or Baptist were elected to Congress.

Haynes goes on, "as domination of one faith recedes, freedom for all faiths and beliefs expands – moving us ever-closer to fulfilling the promise of religious liberty under the First Amendment."

Tell that to  the Green family, who own and operate the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores. They are Christian. They run their business according to their Christian principles, which include both providing for their employees and not paying for the intentional destruction of pre-born persons. The HHS Mandate under ObamaCare will force them to violate those principles or face up to 1.3 millions dollars per day in fines; which will no doubt destroy their business and put out of work the employees in more than 500 stores in 41 states.

That seems like a slightly bigger story than a couple of non-Christian Democrats being elected to Congress.

But not to the wisdom of the WaPo editorialists.

A search of the WaPo website on "Hobby Lobby" returned only five AP reports on the topic. Nothing by Post writers. Nothing beyond brief wire reports. It isn't news to the WaPo and its readers because it does not fit into their neat little view of how the world should be. It violates their reality therefore it doesn't exist.

The Deadly Fantasy of Sports Cars

With no apologies to the New York Times

Someone killed 1 person and critically injured 2 more in Conemaugh, PA using a high-performance, racing-style Corvette made by Chevrolet. Ramon Echevarria used the same type of Chevrolet car to crash into an office building in Arlington Heights, IL. The Rancho Cucamonga hit and run driver also used a Corvette in a spree that killed a bicyclist in July.

Corvettes are by no means the only sports cars of choice among mass killers (the Naperville driver used a Porche), but the brand’s repeated presence in murderous incidents reflects Corvette's enormous popularity in the sports car world, the result of a successful marketing campaign aimed at putting NASCAR horsepower and machismo in the hands of civilians. Car owners once talked about the need for personal transportation and sport driving, but out-of-control ad campaigns like Corvette's have replaced minivans and MGs with highly lethal high performance fantasies.

Motor Trend reveals that, "[the ZR1] is so powerful, so capable, so massively endowed that [it's] beyond the realm of what constitutes a usable, reasonable street car."

The cars, some of which come in red and racing yellow, bristle with features useful only to a Gran Prix driver or NHRA competitor. A six-speed manual transmission featuring launch control makes it possible to shoot the quarter-mile in 11.4 seconds. Weapons-grade supercharged V-8, lets drivers exceed 200 MPH easily. Brembo^® Carbon Ceramic Brake rotors allow precise control without fear of warping from brake pads that grow hot after multiple braking maneouvers are applied. But now anyone can own these cars, and thousands are in civilian hands.


“This supercar can hang with the best the world has to offer. It’s a thrill to drive and offers the performance of far more expensive cars. ,” Car and Driver said, speaking of the Corvette ZR1. “Explosive power and massive grip. This Vette has the performance to battle any supercar.”


The company’s webpage and ads show a Corvette speeding along winding roads at break-neck speeds, engine revving. “Corvette can be found in some of the most legendary races around the world ranging from American Le Mans Series based in the United States and Canada, to the Sebring International Raceway and the 24 Heures du Mans in France,” says the advertising copy, over the through-the-windshild view of a Corvette negotiating the ring at Nurburg. “ZR1 is the fastest, most powerful car Chevrolet has ever produced, and rivals the world’s best luxury sports vehicles both on and off the track,” said the Corvette webpage, peddling a high-performance sports car billed as “the only truly American sports car in the competitive class.” (Available to anyone for $125,920.)


In case that message was too subtle, the company appealed directly to the male egos of its most likely customers. “Driving is collaboration between man and vehicle, and now with more extensive performance options available, you can construct the perfect ZR1 to complement your driving style,” said one Corvette campaign (left on the Web after the Conemaugh collision), next to a photo of a Corvette. “there is no better example than the C6.R race car and its streetcar counterpart, the ZR1.”

The effect of these marketing campaigns on fragile minds is all too obvious, allowing deadly power in the wrong hands. But given their financial success, sports car makers have apparently decided that the risk of an occasional massacre is part of the cost of doing business.

(BTW, in the original editorial, one of the unacceptable aspects of the Bushmaster rifle was, "Barrel shrouds allow precise control without fear of burns from a muzzle that grows hot after multiple rounds are fired." I've never seen a rifle that required the firer to hold the naked barrel in his bare hand. I've also never seen a firer put his hands in proximity of the muzzle while firing, either. I suspect the editor responsible for this mess has never seen an actual rifle at all.)

Bill O'Reilly blows his own horn and Taps for the Republic

Bill O'Reilly blows his own horn on Townhall in his article, Semper Fi, Unless It's Not Convenient, which describes the case of Marine Vetran Jon Hammar, who was unjustly held in a Mexican prison.

According to Mr. O'Reilly, his threat of leading a tourism boycott of Mexico directly resulted in Mr. Hammar's release.

Perhaps it did. If he influenced the decision to release the Iraq war Veteran, Mr. O'Reilly deserves to blow his horn. He did an honorable thing.

And in so doing he illustrated the lack of honor and lack of influence of our State Department and the sorry lack of responsibility of our President.

O'Reilly says, "When we asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for a comment, she refused to say anything about the case. A few of her deputies visited Hammar in prison, but the official line was that State could do nothing more."

Not since Jimmy Carter has the U.S. Government been so completely impotent.

He adds, "In mid-December, the Fox News White House correspondent asked press secretary Jay Carney about the case. President Barack Obama's spokesman looked perplexed and said he did not know anything about it. As unbelievable as that sounds, I believe that Carney was telling the truth."

I cannot recall a time when a U.S. Citizen, in particular a Veteran, was unjustly held in a foreign prison on fallacious charges and the president didn't even care to know about it.

Why I'm not a Capitalist 1

Because Capitalists place Capital ahead of all else in their moral calculations.

Strassel: Big Business Sells Out Small Business

This is no surprise. Whether you call it "Crony-Capitalism," "Statism," or "Fascism" the convergence of big government and big business places all else at the service of capital accumulation.

Don't presume I'm taking a Marxist line, I'm not. I am entirely in favor of free markets. I merely recognize that when Fortune 500 corporations use their political clout and access to collude with the central government to shape policy favorable to their interests, that is not a free market in operation.

The is what a non-sequiter looks like:

"If Catholic clergy feel it is appropriate to preach against federal health legislation that the church believes allows birth control and abortion, then it should also have the courage to preach against 300 million guns that Americans, including many Catholics, currently own."

Legislation is an act of the human will. Therefore, it has a moral character. Guns are inanimate objects. Generally, things have no inhernet moral character.

To over-simplify a bit, it is as if the author said that if the Catholc clergy feel it is appropriate to preach against murder and adultery, then it should also have the courage to preach against hammers.

Then a bit of sophistry: "the church believes allows birth control and abortion"... Actually, it mandates it. Its a feature, not a percieved flaw, according to the Catholic empowered with implementing it. And the Church, if not the National Catholic Fishwrap, recognize the inherently evil nature of abortion and birth control.

So, the author and his publication question the validity of Catholic clergy preaching against human actions that are inherently sinful and the human action that mandates their public support while demanding that the clergy preach against an inanimate object.

Insofar as they are machines built by men, the purpose for which they were built has a moral character. If they have no other purpose, that character, good or evil, may inure to them, I suppose. But even IBCMs are not that easy to classify. Ronald Reagan deployed Pershing missiles to Europe with the intent of forcing the USSR to remove intermediate range nuclear missiles from Eastern Europe, ending the missile race and the Soviet empire with it. He succeeded. Were those immoral ends? Were the means inherently immoral?

The Well and the Shallows II

On my last birthda, my lovely bride gave me the collection of G.K. Chesterton essays published under the title, "The Well and the Shallows." It was published in 1935.

I pulled it from the shelf this morning to provide something to occupy my mind while my mouth and stomach were occupied with a delicious sausage and cheese omlette.

Hiis critique of the Socialists of his era in England rings just as true today, confironted as we still are with all manner of Socialists, Communists, Prohibitionists, and other sentimental tyrants:

"the respectable sort of Socialist who will not call himself a Communist. The study of 'parasitic' Parliamentary Labour is masterly, and my own sympathies would be all with a man like Mr. Maxton as compared with a man like Mr. Thomas. But the sequel is still puzzling; for in the last short note there is no practical programme except a Minimum Wage for all, which is said to obviate the need of expropriation of land and property. I suppose this means that employers would be taxed till they were too poor to employ; and then the State would employ. But what State--and, my God, what statesmen! Why, presumably (if nothing is needed but a new wage raised by a new tax) just the jolly statesmen the world produces at present, the parasitic Parliamentarians turned into omnipotent bureaucrats. I should refuse it, of course; first, because it preserves the wage-system; second because the worst wage-system is one with only one employer, who may be an omnipresent enemy; and third because, in the purely practical statement, there is no provision for any change in the type of tyrant."

Indeed: "Tax employers till they are too poor to employ." Lst the state be the sole employer/provider. Sound familiar?

But, "what State -- and my God, what statesmen!"

What statesmen indeed?

Our country is about evenly divided.. Nearly exactly 1/2 of the country believes the previous president was a war criminal who favored plutocrats and brought the country to economic ruin and that everyone with conservative political beliefs is evil, callous, stupid, crazy etc. (truth be told, there is a measurable percentage of those evik, callous, stupid, crazy conservatives who also think the previous president wrecklessly got the country involved in a foolish war, favored certain plutocrats and participated in the economic ruin of the country).

The other half of the country is convinced on the evidence that the current president is unintelligent, uncurious and meant it when he said he wanted to 'fundamentally transform' our nation. They are certain that he does not hold traditional American values. They concieve that he does not respect or feel bound by the Constitution and that he intends to continue to transform the country into a Socialist one in which everyone is subservient and beholden to the central government. He believes that experts in Washington know better than free people in their communities and that planners can make everyones' life better through their benevolent wisdom, if they are given enough power.

Meanwhile, no more than 20% of the country approves of the work being done by Congress.

So, if everyone has despised at least one of the last 2 presidents, no one trusts Congress and federal bureaucrats rate lower than used car salesmen on the scale of positive regard, WHY DO WE LET THEM SPEND ALL OF OUR MONEY AND DICTATE EVERY MINUTIA OF OUR LIVES?

I'd really like to know. We see the ill done by parasitic parliamentarians turned to omnipotent bureaucrats who are fast becoming an omnipresent enemy.

Chesterton's critique of Socialist schemes rings truer today than it did 77 years ago.

We're All Socialists Now

I don't know what else I can call it but Socialism.

Paul Kengor writes in the American Spectator, "The numbers show a massive increase in government jobs created over the last five months -- 621,000, to be exact, dwarfing private-sector job growth. Those new government jobs account for a staggering 73% of overall job growth. In all, it means that 20.6 million citizens now work for government, out of 143 million people employed in America -- or one in seven Americans."

Meanwhile, at the Daily Caller, Caroline May reports, "The most recent data on SNAP participation were released Friday, and showed that 47,710,324 people were enrolled in the program in September, an increase of 607,559 from the 47,102,765 enrolled in August.

"The new numbers mean that an estimated one in 6.5 people in America were on food stamps in September."

20.6M Americans work for the government, 47.7M are on food stamps; 68.3M people.

It seems that when Democrats say, "grow the economy," what they mean is growing the size of government and the number of people dependent upon it.