Author: Mark Noonan

The Catastrophe…and Perhaps the Way Back

Mark Noonan26 Comments

December 7th doesn’t mean much to the younger generation. Remember: we’re nearly a quarter century after 9/11. If you’re under 30, even that date doesn’t mean much. Back to 1941? Eighty four years ago? It is almost out of living memory. Only a few very old people were even alive when it happened – even fewer have any memory of it. Everything eventually gets ravaged by the artillery of time. But it is still one of the pivotal days of modern times.

People still wax misty about 1914 and Sarajevo and, indeed, there is good reason for that – a whole generation of young people singing their way to massacre in the trenches. But for all the destruction of that war, it was the US entry into World Two which was The Event of the 20th century. The First World War was a quick in and out and though Americans largely supported the effort, they weren’t at all keen at staying involved. Good to keep in mind that it wasn’t the Lusitania sinking or the resumption of German unrestricted submarine warfare which got us enthusiastic about the war, it was the Zimmerman Telegram.

That diplomatic note, intercepted by the British and published by them with exquisite timing set America aflame. We didn’t particularly care about who won that war. We figured that if you sailed on the high seas into a war zone, you took your chances – but the prospect of a German-allied Mexico conquering parts of the American southwest enraged us. And so off to war we went. And when it was Over Over There, we came back home, voted in Harding by an astonishing landslide and pretty much acted like the whole thing never happened.

As late as December 6th, 1941 the solid majority of Americans were opposed to entering the war. Keep in mind that the Holocaust was still not generally known about – and wouldn’t really get rolling until 1942. We didn’t like the Nazis but we felt that it was still Europe’s war. Just like Japan’s war in China was Asia’s war. We were sympathetic to China and Britain, and to those laboring under the conqueror’s boot, but we couldn’t see how it mattered to us.

And with good reason – in a very cold and clear light, it didn’t matter to us. Moated as we were by two oceans, with harmless neighbors north and south, with the second largest fleet in the world after Britain (and easily turned into the largest, as we soon saw), with vast territory and wealth untold to be tapped…why go fight in Europe over the difference between the sides? FDR had been doing everything he could to build up a war fever in the USA – and, additionally, the spreading prosperity due to war contracts was whetting appetites – but it just wasn’t working. We remained stubbornly aloof. We could not be conquered. Not by the whole world in arm against us.

But then came the attack. Of course it outraged us. Of course the recruiting offices were jam packed the next day. Of course we swore we’d beat those Japanese SOBs. But while we did that, we also somehow started to unravel the European colonial Empires while lavishing aid on a Soviet Union hostile to every last American ideal. I mean, seriously: we deliberately set about weakening our allies while strengthening our obvious enemy. Sure, in the process wiping out Germany and Japan but, in the end, those two nations never stood a chance. What stood a chance was a global Left standing over the ruins of European Empires and slowly but surely infecting the United States. And here we are. Eighty four years later. Debating over what “woman” means.

This is why I consider Pearl Harbor to be the disaster – the turning point. The one event I’d really like to go back in time and change. It wasn’t that the war was the problem, it was that it allowed the Left to use American power to win the war, claim it as a Leftist victory and then set about over the past eight decades thoroughly degrading everything that the men and women of 1941 fought for.

We didn’t need an NSA. Didn’t need a CIA. Didn’t need a massive standing military. Didn’t need to allow foreigners to dump their second rate garbage in our markets. Didn’t need foreigners to come here and work. What we need was what we had – a nation of sturdy patriots led by people who knew what the heck to do. We needed, in short, a nation that produced Douglas MacArthur and George Patton…not a nation which wonders if a 5 foot tall woman should be in an infantry company.

This is why I’m so enthusiastic about Trump. The past can never be recovered – we won’t ever go back to 1941. But we can certainly try to recapture what we can. And so Hegseth at War. Rubio at State. And Trump, himself, clearly reading and re-reading McKinley and others who built the nation which won the Second World War. We’re becoming American, again. Unafraid. Hard working. With good will towards the world but no desire be immersed in its (often) very stupid problems. Set against us is the world and that section of the American population which has ceased to be actually American – you know the type without even a description. We’re just strong enough to beat them, and the longer we beat them the more people will come over to our side…until all these weirdos on the Left are nothing but a distant memory.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan19 Comments

Never heard of Franklin the turtle until Hegseth posted a meme using the character – apparently a well-beloved children’s book character and the Canadian author is very, very upset that Franklin was used for some based memes. So, be sure to check them out so you can know what is inappropriate:

And, apparently, Franklin has been hanging out with Amazona of late:

So, whatever you do, don’t make any inappropriate Franklin memes. And don’t laugh at them because the Liberals say That’s Not Funny.

So, the Somali community of Minnesota is neck deep in fraud – and, guys, I am confident it is the tip of the iceberg. In fact, my bet is that immigration (legal and otherwise) over the past 20 years is heavily driven by criminal Cartels sending people here, getting them on benefits and then raking off a substantial amount. This is why Blue States are trying to refuse Trump demands to hand over the list of people on welfare…because that would expose the fraud. It can’t be emphasized enough how much theft is driving the opposition to MAGA. Sure, you get your true believers on the Left, but most people involved – especially in leadership – are bought, corrupted and corrupting. Trump is a threat to their gravy train.

I doubt very much we’ll actually go to war in South America. This is all a pressure campaign – ultimately not on any government down there, but on the Cartels who actually run things. El Salvador and Argentina are showing there are patriots in Latin America who can change things by ruthless action. But we can also see how hard it is for one to get in, and how much local and global opposition arises. And outside those few bright spots, it is a morass of cowards and criminals running things simply to keep themselves on the gravy train.

Securing our border and lighting up the mules at sea is rapidly generating an acute crisis. To maintain their position, the Cartels have to bribe the politicians and pay for thugs to go after those who can’t be bribed. What Trump is doing – in my view – with the military build up is putting pressure on people who are starting to feel less and less pressure from the cash-strapped Cartels. They can ease that pressure by either turning over power to patriots, or turning on the Cartels, themselves. It is a high stakes gambit, and we’ll see if Trump can carry it off.

Americans Don’t Commit War Crimes

Mark Noonan23 Comments

Murder, rape, torture, assault and robbery are crimes. They are crimes all of the time, everywhere and regardless of circumstances. No person can pretend that any authority has granted them the power to do any of these things. They are wrong, as such – and anyone who does these things should be seriously punished, up to and including death in certain circumstances.

Why point this out? Because there is no justification for crime. But we have a bit of a debate going on right now – an accusation that Secretary of Defense committed a war crime. The accusation, of itself, appears to me to be false: that is, he didn’t do what he’s accused of doing. That is, order a second hit on a drug boat with the intent of killing survivors of the first hit. What has got me going here, however, is the assertion that if he gave such order, it amounts to a crime. It doesn’t. Not a crime, as such and, so, not a war crime.

In war, you fire until the enemy is destroyed. That’s it. Failure to do this means that the enemy may be able to fire on you, destroying you. Sure, in bizarre circumstances you’ll be able to take an enemy alive but in combat it goes on until one side runs up the white flag – that is, the leadership of the defeated side surrenders not himself, but the whole force under his command. The drug runners are invading the United States to sell poison to our people. They are enemies. They are armed. They are upon the high seas. We don’t have to give a warning. We don’t have to give a break. Indeed, the more ruthlessly we apply force the more likely it is that the enemy runs out of the means to invade.

And, of course, this whole thing will end the moment the druggies surrender. That is, stop trying to smuggle poison into the USA. This is not a big ask. We’re not asking them to give up anything on their side. They can remain free, alive and able to pursue whatever honest trade appeals to them. All we’re saying is that if you’re trying to invade us with poison, you’re going to die whenever we can get you.

The real problem here is that many of us – including many on the Right – have internalized a Leftwing lie about the United States: that is, we commit war crimes. That we are even capable of committing war crimes. That American soldiers would lend themselves to such a monstrosity. It all started to brew early in the Cold War, specifically during the Korean War when the Communist world started to accuse our soldiers of all manner of war crimes. To this day, Leftwing voices around the world assert these crimes happened even though they didn’t. It was, of course, just a means to an end – to make the American military odious and so cover up the crimes of the Communists. “Look at that American bastard!” was the shout…by a Soviet Red Army which massacred Poles at Katyn and pretty much raped every German woman they could get their hands on in 1945. “See the American crimes!” shouted the Chinese Communists who were at the start of 70 million political murders.

The real gift to the Left here was My Lai – the quite horrible massacre by US troops of hundreds of Vietnamese. Of course, a bit of context is good here: this was in the immediate aftermath of Tet and our Army had suffered a lot of losses including from supposed civilians who revealed themselves as enemies only by the act of killing Americans. Also should be pointed out that it took place just a couple weeks after the Battle of Hue where the Communists had murdered more than ten times the number killed at My Lai…without anyone winning a Pulitizer Prize for covering it. Because it was hardly covered at all in the Western press. Didn’t fit the Narrative. My Lai did – savage Americans!

The reality of My Lai is that a unit of the American army, under gigantic stress from severe combat, went off its head and murdered hundreds. But this wasn’t US policy. A company commander gave harsh yet vague orders to his troops which some of them – not all – interpreted as a license to do evil. The policy of the US government was to go soft on Vietnamese civilians in an effort to win them over to our side. That the carrying out of this policy was, at times, downright stupid is neither here nor there – the crucial aspect is that our Army wasn’t in Vietnam to conquer, murder, rape, loot and torture. The desired goal was an independent and free Vietnam. In this is the crucial difference and what makes My Lai – a horrid crime – not a war crime.

Meanwhile, as noted, over in Hue – just 75 miles away from My Lai (you could drive it in a couple hours) – the Communists murdered as many as 6,000 people (the most commonly stated death toll is just around 4,000 but strong evidence indicates it goes to 6,000). The victims were anyone perceived as being favorable to the South Vietnamese government and/or the USA. They were rounded up, bound, tortured and murdered. Some were beaten to death. Some were buried alive. This was not done by a small section of the Communist force in defiance of policy – it was done as a carefully crafted policy. The Communists had developed lists of people to murder prior to taking over Hue. Had they remained in control of Hue for a longer time, more would have been murdered. What happened at Hue was a war crime. There’s no other way to interpret it.

But it is we Americans are the bad guys! Our whole Army was evil because of one company commander….but the NVA was just peachy even though they murdered vastly more. Keep in mind that what happened in Hue was just Communist policy writ large…all throughout the war the Communists were murdering noncombatants (as well as looting and raping women) as a matter of policy. And after the war they just put that practice on steroids. The Boat People didn’t happen for no reason. A million people fled Vietnam for their lives. 200,000 of them died trying. You don’t get into a leaky, wooden boat and set out into the high seas over mild policy disagreements…you do that because you’ll be dead if you don’t.

In my view – and I defy anyone to refute me on this – a war crime can only be the systematic application of criminal means for national policy ends. That is, it has to be policy. Now, this policy can be overt (written orders and such) or implied – but it has to be a policy. A pattern of behavior. A clear desire for a certain outcome. A soldier who murders a man is a murderer. A unit that massacres one village and then proceeds on to the next for a massacre is a war crime. This is not a difficult distinction to make but it seems impossible for many. I can only say this is because they don’t think it through and, also, they’re afraid that if they don’t mindlessly repeat the Narrative then people will get mad at them (lies always require a massive amount of cowardice to succeed).

The reason it must be my definition is because if you say that any crime committed by any military personnel during war is a war crime then you are indicting the entire military organization. To say My Lai was a war crime is to accuse the United States Army of being no different than the Waffen-SS. It is simply unjust to do that unless you have proof that the military organism is a criminal organization…as we found regarding the Waffen-SS. Our people doing evil isn’t inherent to our military system. And keep in mind that My Lai came to public notice because American soldiers made sure it did. And while the punishments meted out for My Lai do not fit the scale of the crimes, there was punishment and acknowledgement that it happened and it was wrong…and orders were issued to work against any possibility of a repeat. The NVA commander at Hue was given a medal.

The main point for us to make here is that we have to stop following the Leftist Narrative here – it isn’t designed to stop crime, but to hamstring the USA. The reason we have JAG lawyers second-guessing our combat troops is because we listened to Leftists when they accused our boys of being war criminals. Really gotta stop that.

War is cruelty and you can’t refine it. The purpose is to kill. To do this, you have to take men – and these days, women – who are not by nature violent and turn them into killers. Not murderers, but killers. People who will fire on a panicked and routed enemy, gunning them down as they flee in terror until the order to ceasefire is given or the enemy commander runs up the white flag. It has to be this way because that is how you win battles.

War is also a thing of massive stress. Those who encounter combat are forever changed. And it is no surprise that especially after long and arduous combat duty, some people break. And that breakdown can be permanent or temporary and it could cause suicide, or murder. The real lesson here is to avoid war – but if it is considered a necessity and we send our people out to kill, then we have a duty to care for them, to be merciful to them, to try and bind up their wounds physical and mental. You don’t go calling them war criminals because they went off their heads. You might have to punish them. You might even have to punish them quite severely. But you still try to understand what they went through – because you told them to go through it. You, too, bear moral responsibility…you weren’t down in the mud and blood and you didn’t pull the trigger of that soldier who murdered that civilian, but you still played your part in making it happen. You aren’t innocent. So, have a little care here before you cast judgement. Don’t award yourself a Morality Medal because you condemned a poor slob who went wrong under the stress of war.

Like any people, Americans can do wrong things. It is part of human nature. But it has never been the policy of any American government to be criminal. That is, to use criminal means to obtain national policy ends – and especially criminal national policy ends. This is why I say Americans don’t commit war crimes. It isn’t in us. We’re not like that. We might be wrong – and even at times quite fabulously wrong – but we do wish for the good of everyone. Peace for all. Prosperity for all. Freedom for all. We raise armies to defend these things and we at times send those armies to war. And, at times, some of our soldiers fall short of the standards we set for them. That is tragic – but it isn’t a war crime.

Would You Bet Your Life?

Mark Noonan26 Comments

I’m sorry I didn’t do a more Thanksgiving-y post yesterday but that shooting in DC got me riled up – and also got me thinking.

Trump announced last night that reverse-migration is now our goal, and this is the correct way to go. And everyone who is against this – even the leadership of my Catholic Church – should understand it and get on board with it. This is serious business and we need to understand what is truly just and merciful here.

I do want to be helpful. I do want to bring aid to the suffering. I don’t want some poor person to die because they’re in the “wrong” religion or ethnic group or sexual orientation of what have you. It is hideously wrong – here in 2025 – that some people are still being killed over such matters and I do want us, as a people, to do what we can to stop it and rescue those who are most immediately threatened with harm. But we have to be sensible.

I’m a pretty knowledgeable person. Over my 61 years of life, I have studied a lot of things intensely, especially history. For most nations on Earth, I can give you at least a short rundown on their history. I do know that in lots of places tribe, religion and ethnic grouping are of vast importance in deciding what sort of life a person is going to have, good or bad. But even with all my knowledge, I couldn’t begin to unwind for you all the nuances of the tribes of Somalia, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Click on this link: it is a list of all the ethnic groups in Nigeria. You’ll be scrolling down for a bit. There’s a lot of them. And that is just the tribes. When you get into religion you add a whole, new layer of demographic murk. Sure, its about half Muslim, bit less than half Christian with a small number of African traditionalists…but the Muslims have a host of sects with sometimes very different ideas of what Islam is. Meanwhile, over on the Christian side you’ve got a host of different denominations. What does this all mean? That in a lifetime of intensive study, you couldn’t possibly unravel all the various ethnic and religious strands of Nigeria and come to any solid conclusion about how the people there will react to particular situations.

And we’re supposed to be able to vet these people? Make such a solid judgement. Know with high certainty that transferred to the USA they won’t be a problem? How? How could we possibly? Sure, as we’re a society based upon Christianity we can probably do a pretty good job with Protestant and Catholic Nigerians (though, even there, lots of nuance! It isn’t like all Protestant Nigerians are carbon-copies of American Protestants) but how are we to unravel all the various strands of Islam? Even Muslims can’t. And then overlay that with the various tribal and cultural differences. They say when you go to a foreign land that you should take care most of all not to offend the locals. Which is true. But how can an outsider know what would be offensive? As an American I am likely to make a faux pas in Germany…which is an European country based on Christianity. Think of how boorish I might be in Nigeria even if I were trying to be polite?

All we can say for certain as regards places like Nigeria, Afghanistan and Somalia is that for decades now the people there have been engaged in vicious internal conflicts which revolve around different ethnicity and religion. In other words, even they can’t sort themselves out. Even they – who live next to each other – can’t compose their differences and get along. But we’re supposed to import these people to the USA and other Western nations and we’ll get them to calm down? Not in a million years could we do this – not with all the good will in the world.

It is still early in the time line but the first glance at the shooter in DC is that he’s an Afghan brought here under Biden as one of our allies in the Afghan war. Which might all be true enough. But we’re also learning that at least for some time now he’s been on welfare – along with his wife and children. That he has no identifiable skills. This makes me kinda curious about just what he did for us in Afghanistan. Whatever it was, it didn’t create a love for America and Americans in his heart. For all we know he was just a stool pigeon who had to get out of Dodge. But, regardless, here is what happened: we bet a life that he would be ok here. As it turns out, the life of a 19 year old National Guardswoman. It wasn’t his handlers who paid. It wasn’t the advocates of refugees. It wasn’t the Democrats who call us racists. It wasn’t the shooter’s family or friends or those who helped him navigate the system to obtain benefits. Nope. None of them. A life was bet, but it wasn’t theirs. It was Sarah Beckstrom’s. Who’s father had to hold her hand on Thanksgiving as she breathed her last.

The bottom line is that every time we allow a foreigner to move into the USA, we are betting lives on the outcome. What everyone must ask themselves before letting any foreigner in is, “am I willing to bet my life that this person won’t go bad?”. And if you can’t answer a resounded “yes” to that question, then its best that foreigner not come in. It is an absolute thing – if the foreigner is not here then that foreigner can never do anything bad here. If the foreigner is here then infinite possibilities of bad open up. So, as I spin the Wheel O’Foreigners if it lands on a Spanish lawyer coming in to visit Disneyland I’m going to place my bet…but it it winds up on some guy from a failed State wracked by ethno-religious violence…probably not gonna place that bet.

And if that guy from the failed State has provided some service to my nation? Well, then I’m going to be a lot more helpful. Still might not let him into my country, but I’ll be helpful. Like working with a friendly nation of similar ethno-religious makeup where I can settle him. So, maybe the Afghan guy goes to Morocco? Fine by me. I’ll even set him up with a pension.

And if Morocco won’t take him? Then I’m going to ask why – as the Moroccans are going to be far better at understanding the nuances than I am and if they tell me I’d be mad to let him settle in Morocco then while I still might try to find somewhere else, I’d be stupidly insane to allow him into my country. That is, I won’t bet Sarah’s life that I should let this guy in.

And this is simply just – and merciful. Do what we can to help within the confines of reality. There are lots of places in the world. Being in the USA isn’t the only place to be safe and prosperous. And, also, we are not responsible for every bad thing going on. At the end of the day, each nation does have to sort itself out. I get why the various tribes want to kill each other but I also say it is just stupid and they should stop. And if they never stop, then it’ll just have to go the way they want it…without me having to import the ethnic conflict.

Will you bet your life? That is the question. After all, you bet your life every day. When you take a shower, you’re betting your life you can get cleaned up without slipping and cracking your head open. It is, of course, a low-risk bet. While there are probably some hundreds who die each year from slips in the shower, when you bounce that against the gigantic number of showers taken each year the risk is vanishingly small. But it is still there! Each choice is a bet – and a bet of a life. Letting in a Japanese telecom executive and his wife who want to do some shopping in Beverly Hills is an astonishingly low-risk bet. Letting in an unskilled, unemployed Afghan and his family…much higher risk. And, hey, you still might want to risk it…but, remember: you are betting a life. Probably not yours, but a life nonetheless. How much risk will you take? In other words, suppose you let the Afghan in but it would be you to be made to pay the price of anything he does wrong? You’d take a long and hard look at it before you said, “yes”, that is for certain.

And that is how we have to approach this. Much as I’d like to have the shooter’s sponsors in jail for life over this, I can’t do that. But that must be our mindset in deciding who we allow in. If we don’t take this mindset, then we’re playing with matches in a room filled with gunpowder. We have to get much more serious about this whole thing – while not losing our mercy and humanity. While still being willing to help. To do what we can. And, yes, to even still take some in…but only those we’re very sure about. I don’t want to ever have a father have to kiss his little girl goodbye on Thanksgiving because we were unconcerned about who we let into the country.

Time to End This Nonsense

Mark Noonan6 Comments

Of course it was a Muslim migrant let in without vetting under Biden who ended up overstaying his visa. That was the intent – the American (and global) Left wanted this to happen. And all over the West. We can see what its doing in Europe…the more people killed by Muslim migrants, the more restrictions are placed on the native European population. There’s a proposal in Britain right now to do away with jury trials for a host of offenses…to allow a single judge to decide. Because that makes it easier for the court to rule against the native Brit in conflicts with the migrants. It works a bit different here in the USA because of our Constitution and the fact that the people are armed…but make no mistake about it, the project remains the same: use migrant violence to intimidate the native population into submission (the migrants get the payoff in the form of massive welfare fraud that the Left allows to happen). If we had a Democrat trifecta right now, the whole thing about be about new laws against “racism” and gun ownership.

How can I say this with such certainty? Simple: Morocco.

Here’s a picture of the capital city, Rabat:

Not bad looking, huh? In fact, pretty darned nice. Like maybe even a place you, personally, would like to visit. Of course you might – it is a well-known tourist destination for Europeans. Not so much for us because it is pretty far away but, still. Also, of course, an overwhelmingly Muslim nation.

So why don’t the Muslim migrants go there? Or to Turkey, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Indonesia? You know, the Muslim nations in the world which aren’t basket cases? Why?

Because those nations would kill you if you tried to go Islamist. They aren’t stupid. They know what these people are – barbarians heavily influenced by the species of Islam which likes to blow things up. If you’ve got any sense at all you never allow such people into your country…even if you share the same religion and culture. It would be like Americans looking high and low around the world and trying to find Klansmen to import. Why the heck would you do that?

And, guys, don’t get hung up on the Islam thing. I know that some are saying that we need a total ban on Islam in the USA. No. Just no. The fact that Morocco exists shows that Muslims are not inherently flawed. They’re perfectly fine in Morocco and non-Muslims visiting are treated very well, everyone has a good time and on Sunday you can openly go to Mass…and if you’re Jewish, head on over to Temple Beth-el in Casablanca for Shabbat. Not saying things are perfect in Morocco – they ain’t. Of course it is against the law to try to convert Muslims there. Of course it is against the law to agitate against the monarchy. To an American, these are outrageously oppressive laws. But, hey, it ain’t our country. And as a tourist, what do you care? If it really bugs you, don’t visit. The main thing is that Muslims are perfectly capable of maintaining a reasonable, civilized society which the outsider can visit, live in and do business with. So, the problem isn’t Islam, as such. The problem is a certain species of Islam.

And this is pretty easy to identify. That species of Islam runs every sh*t hole in the Muslim world. It is excellent short hand: if the place is a dump, don’t let the residents into your country. Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria – definitely not the place to get your immigrants from. Big flashing red light!

We need to deport everyone from the bad areas – I’m not interested any longer in vetting. I want all Somalis, all Sudanese, all Libyans, all Afghans, etc to be deported. And if they’re naturalized anytime in the last twenty five years, I want their documents fully reviewed and an investigation done to determine if they’ve actually lived up to their oath of citizenship…slightest problem, denaturalize and out you go. This is mere self defense. It has nothing to do with race or religion. I can’t trust the population…that fat slob who stabbed our Guardsmen yesterday was escorted into the USA in 2021. He has been lavished with aid from our country…and his response was to shoot our troops. No. Heck with that. Can’t do it. If that is what even one Afghan is like, then its time for us to not have Afghans around us. So, too, with Somalis…we rescue you from starvation and oppression and your response in the USA is to steal welfare funds and call us racists? Get the **** out of my country. If any person of Afghan or Somali background is reading this and getting all angry and outraged…they get off the stick and prove to us that I’m wrong. Show us that you’re loyal to the USA and not some 9th century savagery.

You do this, by the way, by turning in the welfare cheats, the oath breakers and guys muttering in the back of the room about how he wants to murder infidels. You cease being loyal to tribe, you start being loyal to America. You don’t get to sit back, watch it all happen and them make an insincere statement of dismay when someone gets murdered.

And, now, back to our fellow Americans – our fellow Westerners. Our Left, that is, which has poured these people into the USA and the West…ignored their welfare fraud, turned a blind eye to their crimes and now calls us racists for not liking the whole shoot us in the back thing. Oh, no, we haven’t forgotten about you. In fact, we’re more angry with you – honestly, given a choice between deporting a Afghan jihadist and an upper class liberal white woman, I know where 90% of us would come down. The jihadist might be open to reason at some point.

We need to really go after these people – it’s not like you can wander in from Somalia or Syria and instantly know how to work the American system to drain welfare funds. Someone has to show you how…and I have my suspicion about who the instructors are. And it goes from start to finish…from the bringing in to the settling to the setting up a fake home health care company…and each step of the way, I guarantee an American liberal is involved…and American liberals, you now have blood on your hands. You brought these people in so you could rake off from their theft and keep your cities voting Blue, and now it is time for you to pay.

We can’t just let this pass. As I said, this was intentional. The Left wanted all of this. And their recent rhetoric about the Guard being deployed helped stoke the flames of hatred. It is time we stopped pretending the Left isn’t malicious. We won’t treat them like they treat us – that is, we won’t punish them for disagreeing. But all of them are neck deep in crime…and it is time for people to go to jail.

Making Peace Isn’t Appeasement

Mark Noonan19 Comments

Back in 1908 G K Chesterton wrote a book called Orthodoxy in which he explained his general views but the opening of it has always stuck with me:

Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true.

He went on to discuss the main bee in his bonnet on this – people who say they believe in themselves, pointing out that the madman is the most self-confident person. But this is applicable to any of the cynical maxims our worldly people believe that aren’t true. Another one – this one more relevant post-WWII – is that “you must not appease a tyrant”.

This is considered self-evidently true based on the fact that the British government – led, in turns, by Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain – tried to appease Hitler and the final result was World War Two. Aha!, say our Worldly Experts, the key, then, is to never appease. Never let aggression stand. Go right after those tyrants!

Except, of course, they’re full of it.

As it turns out, I would actually support a general American crusade against evil in the world. I would support raising an American military of 30 millions equipped with the most deadly weapons we can devise to drive through the world killing every last tyrant, murderer, liar and thief we could find. I would then write it in stone on mountains all over the world – in letters carved ten feet deep and towering a hundred feet high – that if anyone in the world set out to do what the dead evil tried, we will be back to kill them all over again. It would be a long, bloody and expensive war but when it was done, all the real evildoers being dead, we could relax in a Long Peace, maybe lasting for centuries before people forgot and started it all happening again.

But that isn’t what anyone wants. I might be the sole person on Earth who can contemplate such a thing. But that doesn’t make me wrong. It just makes me someone who has thought the matter all the way through.

Those who run our world and tell us we must not appease and must not deal with tyrants and so forth are, however, just lying. They’ll appease and deal all they want – when it suits them. And when it suits them to have us oppose the aggressor/tyrant, they’ll have us do so. But only half-hearted. Not all the way! We must stand up to Putin! But, no, not to the point where we’re actually harming him! Its like when we went to war against Terrorism in 2001 but refused to fight the actual Terrorists (you know, the Mullahs in Tehran). All they’re doing, really, is coming up with rationalizations for a policy which profits them the most. And, right now, the policy they want the most is continued war in Ukraine so they can keep harping on the nonsense idea that Trump is somehow Putin’s puppet and his peace deal is worse than Chamberlain at Munich.

Of course, Chamberlain at Munich wasn’t actually Chamberlain at Munich.

The official word we have about Munich is that a craven and stupid Chamberlain sold out the Czechs in the vain hope that it would buy Hitler off and thus avoid a war. The subtext being that Chamberlain should have stood firm and gone to war for the Czechs in 1938.

This is an arguable point – there was much to commend itself in the idea of fighting Nazi Germany in 1938. In hindsight, of course, we can really believe that had this happened, the world would have ended up in a much better place in later years. And it might have – but we don’t know. All we know is what happened. In the event, the Czechs, themselves, refused to fight. They blame the Brits and the French for not fighting but that is, well, bizarre. The choice to fight or not fight was the Czechs. They had a very good army and their defenses in the Sudetenland were formidable. Once the guns went off, no way to know how things might have turned out…lots of people would have loved to see Hitler taken down a notch and if the Czechs had stood tall, they might have found some combat allies. In no event would fighting have made them worse off as surrender merely ensured seven years of Nazi occupation followed by forty six years of Soviet domination.

But here’s the real crux of the matter – if it was morally required to fight Hitler’s regime in 1938 then it was equally morally required to fight Stalin’s regime. Between the two of them, in 1938, there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference. Hitler’s regime went on to plumb the depths of depravity with the Holocaust, but that didn’t start until after WWII began and wasn’t fully implemented until 1942. We can’t demand people at the time know the future – especially something as unimaginable in 1938 as Auschwitz. You can’t, that is, claim that a later event requires prior action. All we can do for 1938 is look at 1938 and see what might be best given what was known at the time.

The first thing to remember about 1938 is that it was just twenty years since the end of World War One. A million Brits had been killed in that war. France had lost more than a million. Nobody in either country wanted a resumption of that. And British and French intelligence had determined, very firmly, that hardly anyone in Germany wanted a war, either. After all, the Krauts had lost nearly two million…and lost the war! The only thing the leaders of the world could see resulting from a war was another slogging match with piles of corpses and victory bought so dear as to be indistinguishable from defeat. Once again – remember! – you do not know about the Holocaust. It hasn’t happened. Hitler’s regime is no more evil than Stalin’s and nobody is demanding war to the death against Stalin. The British, especially, realized how precarious their position was…they were still massively in debt from the war, but their economy was just starting to recover from the depth of the Depression…and they still ruled a quarter of the globe and their Navy was the largest in the world. Another twenty years of peace and the economic ship would be righted…and British global dominance would continue. Go into another World War? Total bankruptcy even if victorious…the Empire dissolved simply for lack of resources to hold it. The end of Britain’s dominant position in the world.

So, sure, who gives a darn about the Sudetenland? That is, who cares about a landlocked nation in the center of Europe that you can’t render direct aid to even if you wanted to? If selling it out got you twenty more years of peace (and British intelligence was appraised of the growing opposition to Hitler in the military plus Germany’s increasingly difficult financial situation as Hitler’s rearmament and public works programs strained the German economy) and the chance that the Hitler regime fades away before anything bad happens? Of course you do that.

But then back come the people who live by cynical maxims – but look at what happened! Europe overrun! War lasting for years! Total destruction of the Continent! All of it could have been stopped if Chamberlain had told Hitler to go jump in a lake at Munich!

Maybe. Maybe not. Once again: we just don’t know what might have happened. We can only know what happened. And, as I said, there was a good argument to fight Hitler in 1938. But there was also a good argument not to: that is, his regime was on shaky ground financially and the Anglo-French alliance was massively more powerful than Germany, even if allied with Italy and Japan. We really condemn Chamberlain before the bar of history not because he appeased at Munich, but because in six weeks two years later Germany overran western Europe. That is, had Hitler not been able to take Paris, then Chamberlain’s memory would tend towards blessed rather than reviled – he would be remembered as the man who rearmed Britain and got her ready for WWII (the bottom line is that the Hurricane and Spitfire fighters, the Lancaster bomber and the Crusader/ Valentine tanks were all products of Chamberlain’s government). And here’s the real kicker – the reason you can’t be too sure about any counter-factual argument – the reason Hitler was able to conquer western Europe in six weeks was a simple (if quite grand) command failure of the French army.

We all know the great German breakthrough at Sedan in May of 1940 – but what most people gloss over (if they even know about it) is the fact that the French had a complete armored division just south of Sedan, perfectly positioned to pinch off that German breakthrough and make mincemeat of the entire German plan. The whole of Manstein’s famous plan was based around a quick breakthrough and a dash to the sea to spread panic among the Anglo-French military organism. If the Germans didn’t breakthrough – and quickly! – then the whole thing would fall apart as the numerically superior and higher quality Anglo-French force redeployed to stop and then roll back the German effort. And what did the French do with their armored division south of Sedan? They dispersed among the infantry forces…blowing their perfect opportunity. This was compounded in following days as a whole series of French errors messed up any chance of a credible response…but even those failures were predicated upon the first.

And that was it. One terrible mistake. Don’t think it’s silly – it has happened plenty of times before. The Austrians at Austerlitz and the Prussians at Jena similarly made mistakes which allowed Napoleon to wipe them out quickly…almost effortlessly, it seems in hindsight. Even though, combined, their armies were larger than Napoleon’s. Take away the mistakes and the Campaign of 1805 would have gone a lot differently. So, too, the Campaign of 1940.

The reality is that the blitzkrieg model of warfare only works if your enemy sort of walks into it – does things which allow you to waltz on through their lines and raise havoc in their rear areas. It worked quite spectacularly in 1940…and thus sowed the seeds of Germany’s defeat because those Krauts really thought they had something there. That is, they could destroy anyone with a combination of tanks and close air support. They ignored their luck at Sedan, plus ignored that, at the end of the day, they sent almost their entire armored force and most of their air force against one small sector of the French line and then the French command pretty much did exactly what the Germans needed to make the gamble pay. That might happen again – but it almost certainly won’t. And for the Germans, it never happened again. Their hubris led them find themselves sixteen months later sitting outside Moscow and Leningrad without the slightest clue what to do next.

What is the reality? That a well managed defense still has all the advantage. The Germans, themselves, showed that – and right at the end of the war. At the Battle of Seelow Heights in April of 1945, the Germans were outnumbered ten to one and they still held the Russians for three solid days…and if the Germans had had anything left to deploy, the Russian attack would have failed.

As it relates to current events, the Russians tried to do a blitzkrieg in Ukraine and after making some advances, found themselves unable to move further save by lengthy and costly siege operations against an alert and well-commanded enemy. What happened in February of 2022 is what was most likely to happened in May of 1940 – save for some incredible stroke of luck. The Germans got theirs. The Russians didn’t. But, on the other hand, it also works the other way – the Ukrainians also lack the power to crush the Russians absent some incredible stroke of luck. The only way either side can triumph is to somehow bring overwhelming force to the crisis point faster than the other side and move reinforcements there. Given general Russian incompetence it is unlikely that Russia can do this, and given Ukraine’s inferior manpower it is unlikely they can as well.

They can keep killing each other! And given Russia’s superior manpower if Putin can hold his people to it long enough, eventually Ukraine would be totally defeated for simple lack of soldiers to hold the line. But this is a project of years – and the side on the offensive is going to lose more dead than the defenders. And it is a massive role of the dice for Putin to even try. We can’t bet on a miracle – we can only count on cold, hard facts. And the cold, hard facts say this war is a stalemate and the result cannot be altered by the forces on the ground…only the intervention of a new, third power Army can alter the equation…and no third power wants to jump in here. We don’t. The Europeans don’t. So, it is time for peace…and, yes, a peace which allows Putin to keep his ill-gotten gains.

Which is not, by the way, outside of human experience. In fact, it is the more common result of warfare. The French lacked the power in 1871 to expel the Germans from France…and so they made a peace where they surrendered Alsace to Germany. It was bad. Unfair. Lousy. But what can you do? You either can do a thing, or you can’t. The French couldn’t beat the Germans that year. Continued fighting would only result in more dead with no alternation in France’s favor…and a solid chance it would get worse for them. Swallow the pride, make the deal. So, too, with Ukraine.

And it isn’t despicable appeasement – it is just diplomacy. We acknowledge Russia’s rule in the Donbas (Ukraine does, too) in return for a cessation of hostilities and a chance for Ukraine to rebuild herself economically and militarily. In other words, for a chance – if really desired – to alter today’s outcome at some future date. If its that important to them – I suspect it isn’t as the lands Putin occupies are mostly inhabited by ethnic Russians and even the most ardent Ukrainian nationalist is not seriously going to want to war on Russia to take in Russians as fellow citizens. This is all that Trump is doing – trying to wrap up Putin’s stupid war and allow the world to move on without more killing.

Trump and Mamdani

Mark Noonan12 Comments

So Trump and Mamdani had their meet and everyone is a little bit confused by it all. Trump was nice and Mamdani was respectful. On the Left there are already those calling Mamdani a sellout and on the Right there are those calling Trump a sellout. But there was one outraged comment from the Left that – unintentionally – said it all:

“Look at that, he kissed Trump’s a** and now Trump is being nice to him.”

He didn’t, of course, kiss anything – but he was nice and so Trump was nice in return. That’s the whole problem with the American Left: they’ve simply refused to be nice. Because Hillary was really mad she lost and so tried a post-facto coup against Trump, the Left has internalized total hatred of Trump. That is, Hillary’s op is the core principle of the Left these days. But if the Left had just ignored that old hag and dismissed her fury at not being given her turn, then we’d be in a whole different situation.

Trump is, very famously, a deal maker. Had the Left come to Trump, hat in hand, back in 2017 and said, “ok, Don: we want this, what do you want from us in return?”, then Trump would have sat down with them, talked it out over a period of time, and then – a country united – we would have enacted a series of reforms which would have given all sides half a loaf. You know, like its supposed to be in America. They would have, for instance, got something like Medicare for All but in return for that they might have had to surrender completely their opposition to nuclear power…so, here in 2025 we’d have a very expensive and clunky socialized medicine system (bad, but what the Left wants) but we’d be generating so much nuke energy with resultant economic growth that paying for the Left’s socialized medicine would be bearable. On and on like that on issue after issue. Get. Give. Give. Get.

Abolition of property taxes on primary residences in return for an excise tax on luxury homes.

Deportation of every illegal in return for increasing the number of legal immigrants allowed per year.

Annulment of student debt in return for affirmative action (as it were) for center and right voices in college.

Increased funding for public schools in return for universal school choice.

On and on and on like that. Nobody totally satisfied but everyone getting a slice of the pie. The Left totally rejected that. And now comes Mamdani – a foreign born communist. The absolute enemy of all we hold dear. But, OTOH, he was just elected mayor of our largest city and instantly becomes one of the most influential people in the USA. Just keep hating on him? Or bring him in for a chat? Always the first option is to be “chat”. Maybe the man is totally thick and can’t be reached. Fine. Then we’re no worse off than before. But maybe he’ll listen? The man said he loved New York City. It is the first time I’ve ever heard him say anything positive about any aspect of the United States. All it took to draw that out was a chat with Trump.

It is always important to remember that God forbids us to hate other people. We can hate what they do, but we can’t hate them. To do that is a sin. I absolutely loath Mamdani’s program…but I keep away from hating him. And, indeed, I sort of pity him. He’s the product of the modern American Establishment. He got a degree, but no education. He’s never worked in his life. He’s always been surrounded by the most privileged elite in American society where everyone just agrees and it is always a ratchet moving relentlessly further Left. Point blank: the man simply does not know. But as a man, he is capable of learning. Of growth. Of thinking it over. Maybe for the first time in his life. We know the problem with our Left: they never think. They just receive a propaganda point and run with it forever. So far, all Mamdani has ever done is run with the propaganda. He might go his whole life doing that. If he does, then he’ll remain a pest and a threat to the USA. But if he even for a moment starts to think, then he might become a valuable member of our society. Trump was placing a bet he could get that young man to think a bit. Maybe it’ll work. Mamdani – suddenly thinking – would not be the first person of the Left who shifted sides over time.

And if this effort by Trump falls flat on its face? Fine. We gave Mamdani his chance. What will happen after that is already in the script…he’ll staff up with far Left freaks who are also corrupt as the day is long and Trump – followed by Vance – will simply launch one federal investigation after another that will easily find the graft and the whole Mamdani experiment will collapse in a series of lawsuits and federal indictments. But if Mamdani thinks a bit, we might be able to get some useful things done in New York City which starts to break down the upper class Left’s hold on the city. Let’s see what happens.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan49 Comments

Keep in mind that a year ago the American people very solidly rejected the Left – but the Narrative being pushed now is that everyone regrets that and yearns for Kamala.

That simply isn’t true. Also keep in mind that at no time in 2024 did Harris’ own pollster show her with a lead – they knew they were cooked from the get-go. To be sure, they might not have told Harris (and her actions on election night indicate they didn’t) but they knew they never had a chance. And if you watch carefully the MSM coverage of Election Night 2024, after a brief burst of optimism early on, by 8 PM Eastern, they all knew it was over. I’ll never forget watching at about 6:30 PM here in the Pacific time zone irritated that they hadn’t called Georgia (they would call it just about half an hour later) when it had been clear since 5:00 that Trump had won it…and my stepson walks past, asking idly what I was watching: “the election.”

“Election? That was over two hours ago.”

I don’t know what particular cyber-nerd-fu he had used, but he told me that the numbers just weren’t there for her and was shocked that everyone hadn’t called it for Trump. So, too, with everyone else in the know. The latest they should have called it for Trump was 11 PM Eastern when California closed. But, they dragged it out until 1 or 2 PM Eastern. Why? Because the Democrats hadn’t given the MSM permission to call it. The Narrative was still be held up, likely to make sure they got all the votes they could downballot. That is how totally owned the MSM is – they could show the raw numbers. They could show that the outstanding votes weren’t there for Harris to catch up…but they couldn’t call it.

So, whatever you see in the MSM is whatever Narrative the Democrats have ordered the MSM to present. It is worse than useless to watch it – because even hate-watching it gives ratings and thus money to them.

Trump rope a doped them again and is now saying he’ll approve releasing the Epstein files. He knows he’s not in them. We know he’s not in them. Those who are saying he’s in them, know he’s not in them. We know by the simple fact that if he was in them, that would have come out years ago. We also note, with great care, that we’re not supposed to question any of the victims…to merely accept their assertions as Gospel. That tells you right there that the victims standing forth are in on a new con – a con designed to make people think that Trump is involved. After all, an NDA does not cover criminal acts…you can talk them up with out violating an NDA. There is nothing, really, to stop any of them from talking…unless they’re being paid not to talk. And I don’t mean by some rich idiot fifteen years ago, I mean today. Something is very dirty in all of this – and Trump has called their bluff.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan10 Comments

Apparently at UC San Diego something like 130 students were asked this math question: 7+2 = 6+___. And twenty five percent of them couldn’t answer it.

That is third grade math, tops. Another education thing I saw recently was a professor who’s class was upset because he was using letters for mathematical equations and the kids were furious that he expected them to know there are twenty six letters in the alphabet.

Turns out when Sir Edward Grey said the lights were going out in Europe in 1914 he was dead right – the only real reason I can think we’re here is so many of the very best people in the West were killed in WWI that we were left with nothing but the dregs…who have, step by step, brought the West down to their level. It is worse in Europe – where the dying was must greater – than in the USA, but everywhere in the West the 20th century saw the most intelligent, physically fit and bravest sacrificed…and as time went on, sacrificed by ever stupider people.

Always good to keep in mind that to be educated 125 years ago meant you knew Latin and Greek. That you had a firm grounding in math, history, law, theology, philosophy and geography, no matter what sort of degree you were aiming at. And also good to keep in mind that money didn’t keep you out of college – sure, the rich kids got in because daddy paid, but anyone who had the intellectual chops for college could get in. Sure, it was difficult to pass the exams…sure you probably had to work to earn money in addition to your scholarship…sure, you lived poor and struggled to keep going. But if you had the grit plus brains, you got the degree…and entered into a world of rare and honored achievement. To be an educated man or woman in 1900 placed you in an elite. A class of people who were not only intelligent, but knowledgeable, hard working and disciplined. Since WWI, all of that has been dispensed and getting a degree is really no more than sitting there and waiting to get it. And now the kids can’t add or read.

Democrats are in massive psy-op mode, again. The bottom line is that they want us talking about anything but their support for illegals, criminals and boys in girls sports (positions their insane base will not let them retreat from). This is why they are now bringing up Epstein as if it had anything to do with Trump. They don’t care that every scrap of evidence indicates that Trump never used Epstein’s services and that the two men hated each other – they’ll just lie and say up is down not really with the intent to convince, but just to get us talking about it. Meanwhile, the GOP is on track to flip voter registration in North Carolina red by 2026…and Pennsylvania by 2028. And even our loss in New Jersey this month is masking a distinct trend in favor of the GOP in that State. Oh, and Nevada is a Red State – so Red that both our Democrat Senators voted to end the shutdown.

The real key is to understand that whatever it is the Democrats and MSM (BIRM) are talking about is mere distraction. Don’t get distracted.

Marjorie Green has decided to join a long list of people who decided to go to war against Trump…and she’s destroying herself in the process. Lets face it, we all had questions about her from the start but as long as she was MAGA, ok. But now that she’s going on the View to attack Trump, that pretty much dispenses with her. Whatever she started out to do, she’s chosen the path of TDS grifter. So be it – and so long.

Michelle Obama is a bitter and exceptionally ignorant woman – she’s been gifted wealth unimaginable (and entirely unearned by her) from a nation she despises…and now she’s out on some book tour telling us how horrible we all are. She is the modern Ruling Class writ large…no ability, no accomplishment, massive sense of entitlement combined with disgusting bigotry. The bad news is she and her husband are only in their 60’s and so the USA has decades left of hearing these two creeps whine about America.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan20 Comments

Happy Veteran’s Day!

What is the MSM up to? Well, lying. As a really good for-instance, 60 Minutes did a bit on Margaret Atwood where it is claimed that her weird kink book, The Handmaid’s Tale, has been banned. The book which has been turned into movies and TV shows and is ubiquitous on line and in bookstores has been “banned”.

As an author I don’t like to critique the works of others – especially since I can’t claim the mantle of the Great Author, myself. But I’ve always found the basic premise of Atwood’s story simply ridiculous. In fiction you’re allowed your flights of fancy – after all, you can use magic in Lontaria, right? But I still try to keep the story grounded in how human beings work. And one thing is certain: if only a small percentage of women could get pregnant (as it is in Atwood’s book), those women would rule the world and be able to command the loyalty of the richest and most powerful men. They wouldn’t be slaves while the rich and powerful are married to sterile women. But, anyways, absurd or not, it hasn’t been banned. But the MSM just goes on and lies that it is – not for you and me, but for the upper class white women who still consume MSM product (and who seem to enjoy Atwood’s weird kink…they also liked Fifty Shades of Grey, after all).

It really can’t be emphasized enough how important these lies are to the Ruling Class, now being heavily attacked by Trump and MAGA. Without lies, they’ve got nothing. They’d have to repent of their sins and join us. So it is very important for us to always know what the MSM is up to – what it is for: to keep the Dem base in line and to depress us.

Democrats caved on the shut down – and it has been noted that they didn’t cave in the face of SNAP benefits being delayed, but once some upper class areas were about to lose air service. That’s when they threw in the towel. I mean, can you imagine? What with climate summit and ski seasons upcoming, it was a crisis.

Main thing is there is nothing to show for it – Trump got almost all of his priorities funded for two years with the One Big Beautiful Bill (and, once again, showed himself vastly smarter than anyone else in DC) so the Democrats had no leverage. They tried to get GOPers to panic and fold but they only snagged Rand Paul on that effort. They never got a bi-partisan majority to reject the CR and that was, in the end, the whole story.

The absolutely insane Left base of the Democrat party is furious about this – they were told the Democrats were fighting. Nobody advised them it was all kabuki failure-theater. So now there are rumblings of primary challenges next year to Democrats who voted with the GOP on end the shutdown. Buy popcorn on that.