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August 24, 2010
Posted by Carla René in: Accountability, Advice, African-American, Attitude, Biography & Memoir, Book Marketing Online, Book Review, Books, Business, Business Management, Cancer, Cap and Trade, Children, China, Climate Change, Commentary, Comments & Discussion, Communications, Communism, Community, Computers, Congress, Contributor's Audio/Video, Creative Writing, Current Events, Democracy, Democrat, Diet, Economic Crisis, Economics, Education, Energy, Entertainment, Environment, Environmental Issues, Faith, Family, Fiction, Finance, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Relations, Freedom, Freelance Author, General Topics, Geopolitical Events, Global Warming, Governance, Habit Change, Health & Fitness, Healthcare, Heroes, History, Homeland Security, Humor, Inspiration & Motivation, Internet, Internet Advice, Interview, Islam, Journalism, Latino & Hispanic, Legal, Life Experiences, Lifestyle, Literature, Marketing, Marriage, Medical, Men's Issues, Mental Health, Mexico, Military, Minorities, Morality, Motivation, Music, Native American, Nature/Wildlife, Non-Fiction, Nutrition, Opinion, Personal Experiences, Philosophical Genres, Poetry, Politics, Publishing, Question of the Day, Recovery, Relationships, Religion, Republican, Rhyme, Satire, Self-Help, Sex, Short Stories, Social Aspects, Social Classes, Social Issues, Sociology, Spirituality, Sports, Technology, Television, Terrorism, The Economy, The Media, The Pundit's Corner, The Writer's Corner, Travel, Uncategorized, Website Instructions, Weight loss, Wellness, Women's Perspective, Women's Rights, Working Women, Workplace, World Issues, Writing Essentials
 Begun back sometime in 2001, this book was originally a fluke of an idea… [...]
August 7, 2010
This is Hiroshima today.
By Alan Caruba
It was sixty-five years ago, August 6, 1945, and the anticipation of the end of the war in the Pacific swept across America when the news that an atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Surely they would surrender, but there was no response from the Emperor or Japanese high command.
A second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki six days later. And still we waited! Finally, on August 15, Japan announced its acceptance of an unconditional surrender. That avoided what military experts of the time estimated would be casualties in the hundreds of thousands if the U.S. had been forced to invade.
By May of 1945 the allies had defeated Nazi Germany and secured its surrender. What followed was the division of Europe as the Soviet Union seized control of its Eastern bloc nations. They would remain under its oppression until it finally collapsed in 1991. Continue reading Hiroshima 1945, Hiroshima 2010
May 30, 2010
As we celebrate our veterans in the middle of yet another war, I have a story told to me by a friend who rarely talks about his Vietnam expierience. It is with his permission I pass this on.
PINK ELEPHANT
Henry was sixteen when left home in for no particular reason 1963. It was just what impatient young men did. Henry was black, very black. He was thick and muscular, with a penetrating stare and hair with a mind of its own. His gait and demeanor suggested menace, but he was always delightfully cheerful and easygoing. He was what, mythically, white folks feared; a confidant Black man. His restlessness and the belief that he needed to expand his horizons sent him to South Carolina, near his mother’s relatives. After finishing high school and drifting for a while, He enlisted in the Army and never went home again. Continue reading For Veterans
April 29, 2010
Posted by Tim Roux in: Business, Economics, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Relations, Geopolitical Events, Governance, History, Homeland Security, Military, Morality, Politics, Terrorism, The Economy, World Issues
War and money have always been inter-related.
After all, you need money to fight a war – it has been argued that all world empires have collapsed ultimately economically because they had to protect too much territory with too little money – and conquest often brings in money. In the past, wars have often been fought to seize resources and enrich the conqueror – ask any passing European colonialist – and a short war generally proves a great stimulus to the economy too.
In feudal times, the king mostly fought wars to keep his otherwise revolting and over-mighty robber barons exhausted but happy. According to feudal law, the barons had to raise the army, but they then got to go on a glorified fox hunt in foreign lands and to return with goodies and rights to land far more valuable than both ears and the tail.
When the feudal system collapsed in the face of the rise of mercantilism in the sixteenth century, the king had to go to Parliament to raise taxes to fund his army, but he still managed to keep his greatest adventurers adventuring on someone else’s doorstep and bringing back the loot.
Not that the formula was infallible. Charles I of England seemingly got it wrong when he declared an unpopular war on Scotland and then tried to raise Ship Money to pay for it. He made the even bigger mistake of stockpiling all these expensively purchased armaments in Hull which subsequently declared for the rebel parliamentarians. However, as the Marxist historian Christopher Hill pointed out, the truth may have been a little different from the way it has been traditionally painted. Continue reading Haliburton – a touch of the medievals?
April 19, 2010
We’re all in this together. [...]
January 5, 2010
By Alan Caruba
The failed Christmas bomber attack was yet another wake-up call for Americans who have slipped into a self-induced coma regarding Islam’s constant threat to the nation and the West.
Despite the post-9/11 attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush and now President Obama have both repeatedly asserted the absurd notion that Islam is “a religion of peace.” It is, in fact, a religion of conquest and one in which the religion and the state are one. To live in a Muslim nation is to live under Sharia law in which conversion to another religion is punished by death.
“When Asia Was the World” by Stewart Gordon is an interesting book about life in Asia during the years 500 to 1500 of the Common Era. “Buddhism and Islam arose and spread along Asia’s far-flung trade routes. So did luxury goods, such as silk, pearls, spices, medicines, glass, and simple things like rice and sugar.” Continue reading Islam’s Legacy is Constant War
December 2, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, Commentary, Current Events, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Relations, Governance, Homeland Security, Islam, Military, Opinion, Politics
By Alan Caruba
As I listened to the President address the nation from West Point, I was reminded of how well he can deliver a speech. It’s like watching a slight-of-hand magician. You marvel at his dexterity, but you know he’s still skillfully fooling you.
The speech, given in the Eisenhower auditorium at West Point, reminded me of President Eisenhower, the former general who led allied forces to victory in Europe in World War Two, the man called back to serve his nation, and a man who was hard on the ears when it came to delivering a speech. It made him more human. We forgave him his blunt manner. After all, he had spent his whole adult life in the U.S. Army, taking and giving orders.
Similarly President Bush never seemed all that comfortable giving a set speech, but you knew he meant what he said. You knew he hated the evil of al Qaeda and the Taliban. You knew he despised Saddam Hussein and other enemies of America, of freedom, and human dignity. He was not smooth, not articulate, but he was genuine.
Barack Hussein Obama never spent a day in uniform and something in the area of two years out of six of his first term in the Senate before being launched on the nation as its savior, its messiah. I always found the references to spiritual powers jarring though, like most, amusing in their over-reach. Obama did nothing to discourage the image.
His West Point speech was primarily political. The military elements revealed a get-in and get-out strategy in what has already been a long engagement of the U.S. military in the Middle East. It was filled with talk of NATO partners, Afghani partners, and Pakistani partners, but it also told the enemy that, if they were just patient enough, the U.S. would leave. Continue reading The Open-Ended War
November 29, 2009
By Alan Caruba
When President Obama delivers a speech on why he is going to send more thousands of U.S. troops and spend more billions on the eight-year-old conflict in Afghanistan, it would be a good idea to better understand why so much of what is reported from the Middle East suffers a great disconnect from the truth.
In 1998, Joris Luyendijk , a Dutch student who had studied Arabic at Cairo University for a year, was offered a job as a Middle East correspondent for a Dutch news agency despite having no experience as a reporter. What followed was his real education about the Middle East and the way it is presented to the West by the news media.
His book about that experience, “People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East” was initially published in the Netherlands in 2006 and has since then it has been translated and published in Hungary, Italy, Denmark and Germany. In October an English edition was published by Soft Skull Press, an imprint of Counterpoint, a Berkeley, California publisher.
Having begun my career as a journalist, I was interested to learn what Luyendijk had taken from his years hopping around the Middle East before and after 9/11 and during the two Iraq wars waged by the U.S. to resolve a problem called Saddam Hussein.
For anyone digesting the news from his morning newspaper or watching it on television, suspecting that it might be biased or wrong, this book that focuses on reporting from the Middle East is a revelation because Luyendijk strives mightily to expose the way the news is manipulated by all the parties involved. Continue reading The Middle East: Reporting an Enigma
November 10, 2009
He was dressed in black from head to toe. Even his back pack and the duffle bag he carried were all without color. Tall but bent over slightly, you could tell age was creeping up on him quickly and he reserved his energy for things other than running for the bus. He walked and the driver waited perhaps out of respect. I’d like to think it was because of the hat.
I didn’t notice it at first because he looked like so many other men is black jackets and black hats on the streets of New York. It wasn’t a fashion statement but the trim and the writing on the hat were gold, green and red. Big letters proclaimed “Viet Nam Veteran” and he looked the part, looked the age. That slight bit of machismo in his ever so slow but precise step was a reminder of the brothers who came back from that conflict with a different mindset all together. He sat in the very front, behind the driver and once he got settled he pulled out a copy of Jet Magazine. I grew up reading a copy of that publication every week. My mother decided that would be the only publication she continued to subscribe to after my father’s death. Continue reading Bus Story: The Man in Black
November 8, 2009
Posted by Tim Roux in: African-American, China, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Relations, History, Homeland Security, Islam, Journalism, Latino & Hispanic, Military, Morality, Politics, Religion, Republican, Sociology, Terrorism, Women's Rights
In Britain it is now a criminal offence to make any statement which might incite racial hatred. So, if you go around saying that all Irishmen are stupid or all Welshmen are thieves, then you may well find yourself helping the police with their enquiries and facing a sharp fine or even a term of imprisonment.
Some commentators consider this law to be draconian but it does take a clear political stance and one thing I have learnt over my lifetime is that nearly all racism is neither random nor ‘naturally’ grassroots-derived but rather politically or economically motivated, indeed directed.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, black Africans were slaves or treated as slaves. They were shackled, they died in transit under inhuman conditions, they were worked to death, they were unpaid. How do you justify treating a fellow human being this way? How can it be possible even legally to rape and execute black Africans at whim?
There was a simple answer. Black Africans were not human, they were sub-human. Indeed, they hailed from another, lesser, branch of the human family altogether. And there was no shortage of commentators and pseudo-scientists who popped up to argue that black Africans were so bestial that they were really no different from a cow or a horse, that they were incapable of moral understanding (probably the most obscene argument in history), that they were beyond civilisation and, yes, if you measured their brains they were smaller and lighter than a white man’s. Continue reading Should there be a law against it?
October 16, 2009
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse in: Commentary, Comments & Discussion, Current Events, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Relations, Freedom, Geopolitical Events, Heroes, History, Homeland Security, Islam, Military, Morality, Opinion, Religion, Terrorism, The Pundit's Corner
War
During America’s brutal and bloody Civil War, General William T. Sherman said, “War is cruel and you cannot refine it” and “war at best is barbarism.” Sherman is also credited with saying “War is hell.”
Alexander the Great was known to be both a wise philosopher and a fearless conqueror. In the fall of 335 BC, Alexander marched to the gates of Thebes (a Greek city that broke free from his Macedonian empire when Alexander was twenty). He let the people of Thebes know that it was not too late for them to change their minds. The next day, the Macedonians stormed the city killing almost everyone in sight, women and children included. They plundered, sacked, burned and razed Thebes, as an example to the rest of Greece. Alexander did not fight a “refined” war where women and children were spared.
After Alexander conquered the Persian Empire, he ran into trouble in Afghanistan and used the same tactics to quell the rebellious Afghans.
Genghis Khan (1165-1227 AD) was one of history’s more charismatic and dynamic leaders. During his lifetime, he conquered more territory than any other conqueror, and his successors established the largest empire in history. As an organizational and strategic genius, Genghis Khan created one of the most highly disciplined and effective armies known, and this same genius gave birth to the administration that ruled that empire. After he died in 1227, the Mongol armies dominated the battlefield until the empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Adriatic Sea. Genghis Khan, like Alexander, spared no one when he met resistance. When people surrendered, he was benevolent. When they resisted, his armies slaughtered everyone like Alexander’s armies did. Continue reading War
October 1, 2009
Posted by AngelaPoseyArnold in: Current Events, Faith, Family, Freedom, General Topics, Inspiration & Motivation, Military, Relationships, Religion, Social Issues, Spirituality
Shield of Faith
By Angela Posey-Arnold
“…….. hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil. Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:16 NLT)
The war is on. The nation is attacked by a massive mighty power under the cover of darkness. The morning dawns and destruction meets every eye. The President declares war against the enemy and sends one soldier out alone to fight this battle and expecting him to win. No helmet, no gun, no bullet proof vest, no boots, nothing. Just dressed in duty camos he walks out alone into a barrage of bullets. Alone with no shield, no weapon, no superior officer to give him orders, no medics to save him when he is wounded and no Chaplain to pray for his dying soul.
Why would any President conceive in his mind that one lone man, defenseless, could possibly survive much less fight a mighty power unarmed? He wouldn’t if he wanted to win. Continue reading Shields Locked
September 28, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
When I was a teenager, I made a lot of money as a magician, entertaining at parties. At Ted Collins Magic Mecca I could buy the wonderful apparatus that existed for the sole purpose of fooling people who, it turned out, loved to be fooled.
Fooling people is a full-time occupation for those seeking to avoid war or planning to engage in one. Saddam Hussein believed that if the world thought he had weapons of mass destruction, Iraq would be safe from attack. He successfully deceived everyone, but it also led people to conclude he could not be left to use them.
Earlier, on Yom Kippur 1973, while Israelis were worshipping during the holiest day of Judaism, Egypt and Syria used deception to begin a fourth Arab-Israeli war that ended in defeat for both of them.
Since its inception, Israel has had to deal with Muslims intent on destroying the nation and its people. Now they are faced with what is often called “an existential” threat from Iran, but there is nothing existential about it, nor is it Israel’s problem alone.
The long quest for nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them is nearing fulfillment for the Iranians and they have never made it a secret that they intend to attack Israel. So Israel and to some extent America has had to work the magic needed to deter Iran from acquiring nukes and the deception needed to eliminate its capacity to ever use them. Continue reading First Strike Magic
September 21, 2009
Posted by AngelaPoseyArnold in: Current Events, Faith, Family, Freedom, Heroes, Inspiration & Motivation, Life Experiences, Military, Poetry, Religion, Spirituality, Terrorism
Since 2004 I have been involved with “Amazing Grace, Ministry to the Troops”. We send packages to Chaplains and soldiers, and individual letters and cards to actively deployed and wounded American troops. [...]
September 16, 2009
In 2003, when President Bush took the U.S. into a war with Iraq, he claimed it was “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.” Well, obviously there were no WMDs. It’s questionable how “free” the Iraqi people are today, let alone whether or not we Americans have the right to determine what “freedom” should mean to citizens of another nation. However, it’s clear that terrorism is alive and well, regardless of who may be supporting it.
According to the United States Law Code, the term terrorism means “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents”. By that definition, what the U.S., Britain, et al., did in Iraq was war. Now, of course, the American public knows that war really WAS about oil, not to mention some family vendetta against Saddam Hussein. Now that the Iraq hoax has been exposed, President Obama is shifting our focus from Iraq to Afghanistan, where the “real” jihad-minded, terrorism-inflicting, Muslim fanatics live (and hopefully will soon die).
How many lives, how many trillions of dollars must our country sacrifice for wars against entire countries, when we fully realize that the billions of average Muslims are no more teeth-gnashing fanatics than the garden variety Christian? There are some pretty fanatical Christian groups right here at home, you know. Continue reading Using terrorism against terrorists
September 11, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
9/11/2009 took a large psychic toll on Americans.
I am no exception. By early evening, I found myself profoundly angry watching the Mayor of New York explain why Ground Zero is still essentially a hole in the ground eight years after the destruction of the Twin Towers.
This nation fought and won World War Two in four years’ time and in two separate theatres of war in the Pacific and in Europe. By the time it was over, the major cities of Germany and Japan were rubble and both armies and civilians were among the dead because the only way to convince an enemy to stop waging war is to destroy their will to continue.
History tells us this over and over again. It is the reason the Romans laid siege to Masada.
We have been in Afghanistan since 2001 and in Iraq since 2003. What we’ve been doing there is more a police action than a war.
That’s why the Korean War is officially called a United Nations police action, not a war. We settled for a stalemate. Continue reading The Disgrace of Ground Zero
September 10, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
As one drove into New York from New Jersey in the years before 9/11, there was an ellipse of roadway that gently curved into the waiting entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel. From there you could see the Twin Towers in the distance, across the river, dominating the lower end of Manhattan.
It bespoke the nation’s economic strength, its international outreach, its capacity to build two such impressive skyscrapers, made more so by their architectural simplicity. They gleamed in the rays of the Sun. They mirrored the silver Moon.
I had occasion to dine in Windows on the World restaurant several times, high atop one of the towers. A wall of windows ringed the restaurant and one could look at New Jersey on one side and Brooklyn on the other. A walk around that restaurant took in all the boroughs from that great height and there, down in the vast harbor, one could see the Statue of Liberty. So high up were you that it seemed a small thing from that distance.
If I wanted to strike at America’s confidence, America’s bravado, America’s dominance, I would have destroyed the Twin Towers and, of course, that is exactly what Osama bin Laden did. Continue reading Surrender is Not an Option
September 10, 2009
By Alan Caruba
Has it been eight years?
What I learned from 9/11 was that a lot of Americans have concluded that it was America’s fault we were attacked. That may sound screwy to people who correctly believe that al Qaeda planned, funded and provided the men who carried out the attacks, but why deal with the facts when conspiracies are so much more fun? Why not just blame the victims?
9/11 was not the first attack on the Twin Towers. For those with any attention span, the first attack came in 1993 and was treated as a criminal act by a “gang who couldn’t shoot straight” Muslims, one of whom actually returned to the rental agency to get his money back because the truck used in the attack was destroyed.
Here’s where we are eight years later. As far as the government is concerned, it has learned NOTHING from the event and the subsequent efforts to kill the Taliban and al Qaeda lunatics who were operating in Afghanistan and badlands of Pakistan.
Not only are we still in Afghanistan, not only have we blandished billions on “nation building” in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well on Pakistan, but the Obama Justice Department thinks the CIA interrogators are the bad guys and wants to extend Miranda rights, the full protection of the U.S. Constitution, to terrorists. Continue reading 9/11 Eight Years Later and No Safer
August 23, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
Though most Americans are unaware of it, the rest of the world is taking an active interest in the sometimes heated debate we are having regarding the alleged healthcare “reform” that is, in fact, yet another effort to push the nation further into the same socialist tentacles that have been embraced elsewhere.
Unlike Las Vegas, what happens in America doesn’t stay in America. As the world’s sole superpower, the man we select to be our president becomes the de facto president of the world insofar as his decisions reach into dusty villages in Afghanistan, affect global stock and commodity markets, and can determine the success or failure of movements toward freedom everywhere.
There would be no “Pax Americana” if we were seen to abandon our allies.
The similarities between the Roman Empire and the young American Empire are examined in an excellent book by Thomas F. Madden, “Empires of Trust.” Continue reading America’s Empire of Trust
August 18, 2009
Bela Kiraly, 1912 – 2009
Long considered a folk hero in Hungary, Bela Kiraly is the kind of man I admire. A general in the Hungarian army, he was sentenced to death four different times for sedition, spending 4 years on death row. Paroled in 1956, he led Hungarian freedom fighters against the Soviet invasion, escaping into exile with some of his forces when they were overwhelmed.
Aside from all of his accomplishments, which include earning a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University, here is what I like about the man, and what makes him a hero to me.
He was a man of honor who stood for the honorable treatment of people. During World War II his unit was assigned several hundred Jewish slave laborers. With the Nazis in power, rather than hand them over for transportation, he put them in uniform and made them part of his troops, saving them from certain death in the camps. He was later honored by Israel for it. Arrested by the Soviets at the war’s end and sent to Siberia with his men, he and a number of them escaped the train and hiked back into Hungary.
During Hungary’s attempted break-away from the Soviet bloc in 1956, he was made commanding general of the rebels while still in the hospital recovering from 5 years of prison for “sedition”.
In 2006, learning that one of the Russian generals who led the 1956 invasion was still alive, he invited him to Budapest to join the 50th anniversary celebrations. When the general declined the invitation, fearing that he might be arrested, 94 year old Kiraly flew to Moscow and spent a weekend reminiscing with his former enemy. Continue reading Bela Kiraly, My Kind of Hero
August 17, 2009
Posted by seamus in: Accountability, Attitude, Congress, Current Events, Democracy, Economics, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Relations, General Topics, Geopolitical Events, Homeland Security, Military, Morality, Opinion, Social Aspects, Social Classes, Social Issues, The Writer's Corner
With double navy crosses, a distinguished flying cross, a bronze star and three purple hearts, I was singled out by a long haired professor my first week back in college as a baby killer. Welcome home, right? [...]
August 14, 2009
Bernard Loeffke, Major General USA (retired), Physician’s Assistant, visionary, warrior. My kind of hero. [...]
July 12, 2009
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse in: China, Congress, Current Events, Democracy, Economics, Environment, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Relations, Freedom, Geopolitical Events, Military, Morality, Motivation, Politics, Republican, Social Issues, Uncategorized
Is China a danger to the world? This is a topic I have wanted to write about for some time. I suspect my motivation for writing this comes from being sent to Vietnam [...]
July 7, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
Bit by bit the news is getting out. First it was a news report of Israelis, Egyptians, and Saudis getting together to discuss their mutual interests and concern. In other words, Iran!
Now The Times (UK) is reporting that “The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites.”
This was followed by news of an ABC News interview with Vice President Biden who said, “Look, Israel can determine for itself—it’s a sovereign nation—what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else, whether we agree or not.”
Translation: We hope they will bomb the heck out of Iran’s nuclear facilities because we do not have the guts to do it ourselves. The President then said Biden had misspoken and that no “green light” had been given. Apparently, it’s okay to “meddle” in Israel’s internal affairs, but not Iran’s.
The least likely partners in the Middle East are Israel and the Saudis, but both have a common enemy and the Saudis have always been shrewd in their judgment as to whom to back in a fight. They also prefer having others do their fighting for them. Unless you haven’t checked lately, Saudi Arabia shares a very long border with Iraq and is just across the Persian Gulf from Iran, along with Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Continue reading The Saudis Choose Sides
July 2, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
When I served in the U.S. military I knew two closeted homosexuals were serving in my unit. My version of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was not to tell because I saw no reason to “out” them and not messing around in other people’s lives has always been a policy of mine.
I was naïve enough to think that, if they wanted to serve and if they remained “closeted”, which is to say as long as their sexual preference did not interfere with their performance of duty, it was not my problem. Fifty years ago being gay meant staying in the closet or paying a price for being open about it. It surely meant not serving in the U.S. Army and these fellows wanted to.
Fast forward to the present when being gay has lost much of its former stigma. Ellen DeGeneres has her own popular talk show. “Will and Grace” was a successful sitcom. “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” was popular for a while. Barney Frank came out of the closet and apparently Massachusetts voters did not care. The level of tolerance is, in many respects, nothing less than astonishing. Continue reading Gays in the Military
June 6, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Accountability, Current Events, Democrat, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Relations, Governance, Homeland Security, Military, Opinion, Politics, Terrorism
By Alan Caruba
“In defense of our nation, a president must be a clear-eyed realist. There are limits to the smiles and scowls of diplomacy. Armies and missiles are not stopped by stiff notes of condemnation. They are held in check by strength and purpose and the promise of swift punishment.” I will tell you who said that at the end of this commentary.
D-Day, 65 years ago, was one of many days throughout history that determined the final outcome of a war. I suspect one can attach a great battle to just about every day in the calendar because the history of humanity is one of constant warfare somewhere, anywhere in the world where two men, two families, two tribes, two empires, or two or more states clashed.
The courage that Americans, joined by Canadians, British, Free French, Polish, and other troops showed on June 6, 1944 preserved freedom for a bit longer among the victors, though all of Eastern Europe had to be written off as the bribe to keep Soviet Russia involved. It would ultimately loose 20 million of its people.
The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed about 199,000. People forget that the Japanese emperor and the military, though clearly defeated, refused to concede. Continue reading War! War! War!
May 24, 2009
 By Alan Caruba
It’s about one of the most remarkable airplanes ever produced by this nation, a spy plane that kept an eye on a lot of evil people in bad places. It was known as the Blackbird and was built to replace the U-2 in which Gary Powers was shot down over Soviet Russia in 1960.
It was built to fly three miles higher and a heck of a lot faster, but it was also built to be able to take a photo of the license plate on Nikita Khrushchev’s car or Fidel Castro lighting a cigar.
They only made forty of these remarkable airplanes. Only 93 pilots would ever fly the aircraft throughout the quarter century it served during the Cold War.
Affectionately the crew called it the “sled”. In 1986, the Blackbird flew over Libya when its dictator challenged the United States and it accelerated away from two missiles fired at it so fast the pilot and fellow crew member crossed the Mediterranean Sea and were just south of Sicily in mere moments. They had to turn around to be refueled over Gibraltar.
The last of the Blackbirds sits in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space museum in Washington, D.C. In its last trip there, the Blackbird broke four speed records from Los Angeles to its final place of honor. Continue reading Memorial Day: The Blackbird and You
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Books by SWI Contributors
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The Gaslight Journal is Done
Begun back sometime in 2001, this book was originally a fluke of an idea… [...]