Foreign Affairs

It is a War to the Death

Mark Noonan93 Comments

A lot of people – left and right – are all “how could this have happened?” over the past few days. This infuriates me. The program of Hamas is the destruction of Israel and the extermination of the Jews. They hold to every libel ever issues against Judaism; they believe The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. They believe that killing Jews is pleasing to God.

This is not a sort of people Israel can strike a deal with, even supposing Hamas was willing to strike a deal, which they’re not because they believe they have to kill all Jews and “liberate” every square inch of “Palestine”. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they only response Israel can ever make to Hamas is to kill them until they unconditionally surrender. Hamas is a modern-day iteration of Nazism…its existence is incompatible with the existence of Judaism. One or the other has to go.

And I saw it. Back in 2009 right here on the blog:

…even if one wishes to suppose the worst of Israel, all stopping Israel does at this point is ensure that more people will die at a later date at the hands of Hamas and then at the hands of the IDF in response.

Here we are, at that later date. But even more horrific because Hamas has thought carefully about how they want to do this. Do not discount the intelligence put into this – they hit Israel very hard. At least a thousand dead including hundreds of Israeli soldiers. That would be the equivalent of killing about 45,000 Americans in a day. Latest story is that Hezbollah is starting to sending death squads into northern Israel. And don’t discount that the Arab street is very pleased with this. Sure, the Arab nations were rapidly making peace with Israel but that was the Arab Ruling Class…the basic Abdul on the street is heir to a century of vicious anti-Semitic propaganda and is just thrilled at Hamas’ attack. Hamas is counting on the people of the Arab world to make peace with Israel politically impossible.

But they are also counting on Israel holding back; to not take that last step. Keeping in mind that Hamas’ senior leadership is in five star hotels in Qatar (our “ally”); they are not at risk, personally. They have their money in Swiss bank accounts. They don’t care how many people in Gaza die nor how much destruction happens. But they are expecting Israel to stop at some point with Hamas’ power structure in Gaza intact. Then Hamas’ plan would be to suck in billions of foreign aid (most going to pad their personal bank accounts) to rebuild Gaza and then on to the next round.

The question is: will Israel stop? We’re going to find that out. But one thing nobody should be is surprised and shocked, nor should anyone be shedding a tear for Gaza. This is what they wanted. This is what the believe. They are willing to die for their beliefs. Israel has to be willing to die for Israel, as well. But there is no half way point – Israel has to either entirely win, or they will entirely lose.

There Are no Non-Combatants

Mark Noonan72 Comments

Julius Streicher was hung as a major war criminal at Nuremberg on October 16th, 1946. What did he do? Well, he didn’t kill any Jews. Didn’t organize shipments to death camps. Wasn’t a member of the SS or Gestapo. Wasn’t part of Hitler’s inner circle. He wasn’t even a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA) until he was made an honorary member in 1934. Heck, he hadn’t even had an official position in the Nazi government since 1940. So, what was it? Why did we bother executing him as one of the major war criminals?

Because he was the publisher of Der Sturmer. This was a hideously anti-Semitic rag which pushed the blood libel of the Jews and accused them of every manner of depravity. Basically, what Streicher did was set the stage for the Holocaust; he infected the German mind with the most vicious type of anti-Semitism so when it came time to round up the Jews and ship them off to camps, the Germans could tell themselves it was a good thing to do. The judgement of the Nuremberg Tribunal was that without people like Streicher, the Holocaust would not have been possible.

In the past I’ve noted my objections to the Nuremberg Trials – most notably that they had Soviet judges – but this is one thing I believe the Tribunal got right: the crime of not doing the right thing. My only real objection to the Streicher conviction was that it wasn’t carried further. That is, it wasn’t applied more broadly to the German people. You see, Streicher knew what he was doing; he wasn’t some complete moron; he was a school teacher and the son of a school teacher. He knew that you aren’t supposed to spread hate and lies. How do I know for certain he knew? Because it is rock-solid certain that Streicher wouldn’t want hatred and lies spread about him and his own. Whatever Streicher’s real views about Jews, he knew going in – before be put the first lie to paper – that he wasn’t supposed to do that. The German people, as a whole, also knew: their protestations in 1945 that they had no idea about the Holocaust were drivel…the Nuremberg Laws were enacted in 1935 and any fool could see that only very bad things would result from a legal system which denied the humanity of a segment of the population. Once again: we’re certain of this because no German would want to have laws enacted making Germans into a sub-human class.

I bring this up because we’re already getting the stories of “innocent Palestinians” being killed in the Israeli retaliation. My contention is there are no innocent Palestinians. As I’ve noted before, we started seeing those videos out of Palestine some years back where cute, little Palestinian kids are taught to hate Jews and to glory in killing them. Those cute, little Palestinian kids are now the adults in the Hamas death squads. The whole of Palestinian society – especially in Gaza where Hamas dominates – is geared towards teaching hatred of Jews and the glory of killing them. Just as Germans didn’t make the leap immediately to shoving Jews into gas chambers so, too, did the Palestinians not start raping and murdering random Israelis right out the gate. It took time, patience and careful instruction. It took a religious, social and political infrastructure all singing the same song to craft the sort of people who would think it was a good idea to walk up to an old Israeli at a bus stop and shoot him. To rape a girl next to her dead friends at a concert. To parade naked corpses through the streets. And the Palestinians who have created this system and now unleashed it on Israelis knew when they started that it was wrong. How do I know? Because you can be certain that the Palestinians don’t want the Israelis to teach their children from the ground up that God wants them to rape and murder Palestinians. The Palestinians have no excuse; they are participants in what amounts to a very large Hitler Youth camp. They deliberately made people eager to commit evil; just as the Nazis did.

And, now, the Palestinians have to pay. In blood. Lots of it. There is a cancer in the Palestinian body politic and until it is cut out no cure is possible. It isn’t enough to just hit some targets; the entirety of the system which makes death squads has to go. I do not know what Israel has planned – they are clearly gearing up for a massive operation and the troops sent in will have little reason to be gentle. But I hope the Israelis realize the magnitude of their task – all of Hamas has to go. The whole idea of it has to be wiped out – that is, so much violence has to be applied to the people of Gaza that they come to realize – as the Germans did in 1945 – that the lies they believed were a false god. Nazism was exterminated with thousands of tons of bombs and allied boots kicking in German doors. So, too, it will have to be in Gaza.

And in this operation the Israelis are incapable of committing a crime. There is nothing they can do which would be out of bounds. I know lots of people like to think there are hard and fast rules of war but there really is only one rule: if the enemy does it, so can you. Once the enemy uncorks hell, then hell may be applied to the enemy. You must never be the first, but once the other side does it, you’re free to act in whatever manner seems best to you.

To be certain, the Israelis are civilized people so we’re not going to see IDF soldiers raping and murdering Palestinian women. But because Palestinians raped and murdered Israeli women, there is no limit on the application of force. There are no non-combatants. There are no innocents. There are people who must be compelled to stop believing in Hamas and whatever application of violence proves necessary is legitimate.

My prayers are for the soldiers of the IDF – that they may conduct themselves with courage and as they go through their distasteful task I ask God to give them the wisdom to know when it is time to kill and when it is time to heal.

Attack on Israel

Mark Noonan21 Comments

Why did Hamas send murder squads into Israel? Same reason we see packs of feral people looting stores in the USA: because it was allowed.

This is going to be the hard part for everyone to swallow. Nobody wants to hear that they are responsible for something bad happening. When we see packs of looters we blame their parents, the police, the government; never ourselves. But we allowed it. To be sure, the fight to forbid it would be long and difficult and there are those who essentially encouraging it who bear even greater responsibility…but we all allowed it. Whenever we tolerate any bad behavior, we’re giving permission, even if not encouraging. Looters in our stores are the result of decades of everyone letting things slide. So, too, the attack in Israel.

Lets recap here, guys. In 1948, the Palestinians were offered the lion’s share of the land. They rejected it and attacked and then lost. Almost immediately after this defeat Arab terrorism was born…and all through the past 75 years it has been an on-going activity. To a greater or lesser extent, the Muslim people have sought to murder Israelis. Through war after war – all unprovoked attacks on Israel – the terrorism has continued. The Muslims have again and again been offered deals they could not secure by battlefield efforts. They were given back the entirety of the Sinai as an inducement to land for peace. Nothing doing. It just keeps going on and on. Because the Israelis allow it.

To be fair, the world does act as a restraint upon Israel; this does make us partially responsible as well. We’re always telling them to hold back, to pull back, to not hit too hard. One of the most infamous examples of this as at the conclusion of the Yom Kippur War when we directly forbade Israel from destroying the surrounded Egyptian Third Army. It was said that we didn’t want Egypt humiliated.

But, why not? I don’t really know. I can’t explain it in any rational terms. It was a perfect opportunity to give the Egyptians – and the larger Muslim world – an object lesson. A reminder that Muslim arms always have been second rate. In just 48 hours Third Army would have had to raise a white flag for lack of water…and that would have been the time to dictate peace to a prostrate Egypt and instruct the Muslim world that war against Israel leads to humiliating defeat. But, no. And while the peace between Egypt and Israel has held, the larger war has never stopped. Because Third Army was allowed to live…it taught the lesson: fight Israel. Do your worst…and when you get your ass kicked, the world will step in and Israeli conscience will kick in and you’ll be spared total defeat.

Hamas did not think it was going to march on Tel Aviv with a few murder squads. And they also know that the Israeli response was going to be very strong. They don’t care about that. They don’t care about their own people any more than they care about dead Israelis. Its all part of their game – a war game which keeps them in power (and banking NGO money in Switzerland) and which they believe will eventually destroy Israel. They expect after a few days or maybe a week of Israeli attacks that the whole thing will be called off. Money will pour in to rebuild damage in Gaza, the global Left will be thick with denunciations of Israel, Leftist Jews would deplore Israel’s response and so on to the next round. In other words, Hamas would be given permission to send more murder squads in. Just as the Muslim terrorists have been repeatedly given permission since 1948.

So far, the Israeli response is far harsher than any I’ve seen before – but I do note that they are taking Hamas fighters alive and they are giving warnings to Gaza before buildings are hit. This is not the way; in fact, any softness at all just tells Hamas that they are winning. This has to get very, very harsh…a humiliating defeat for Hamas or it’ll just happen again. There are some indications that Israel is willing to go that route. Its going to be hard, though, because the whole world will tell them not to. They have to steel themselves to it. They can’t be held back by false morality.

Already you’re hearing the stories of Palestinian civilians being killed. The Palestinian propaganda outfits made sure that the reported number of dead Palestinians was greater than the number of dead Israelis…that is crucial for the propaganda; Israel is the bad guy. This must be ignored. There are no non-combatants in Gaza.

Do you remember about 12-15 years ago when you first started seeing videos of cute, little Palestinian pre-schoolers being taught to hate Jews and to consider killing them glorious? Well, those cute, little Palestinian pre-schoolers are now the men who just went on a murder spree. Get it? The whole of Palestinian society – parents, teachers, religious and government leaders – is creating generation after generation of Palestinian men who yearn for the chance to murder Israelis and parade their naked bodies around. It is very much Hitler Youth stuff. Everyone in Gaza is complicit in this. Sure, I understand that the bully boys of Hamas enforce conformity but there is still consent. There is still culpability…and more important, as the whole of Palestinian society is engaged in creating men who can murder people randomly, the whole of Palestinian society must be destroyed. So: no non-combatants. If Israel leaves Hamas in place then all they’ll be doing is giving Hamas permission to raise another crop of murderers.

Gaza has to be attacked until the survivors raise their hands as they emerge from the rubble. There has to be acknowledged defeat on the part of the Palestinians. However long it takes, however many lives it costs. This must end…or Israel will end in the long run.

9/11 Twenty Two Years On

Mark Noonan66 Comments

What went wrong? Why did that horrific event cause so many other horrific events, resulting in a lost war and a panicked flight from Kabul?

Did you know the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on that fateful day retired to various sinecures in the education and corporate world? He also endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2008; in an astonishing bit of absurdity calling her someone who understood what being in the military is like.

The Director of the CIA? Was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom when he retired in 2004. He also retired to various sinecures in the education and corporate worlds. Got a book deal, too. Oh, and later on offered biting criticism of W. Bush who awarded him that medal.

The FBI Director? That was Bob Mueller. You guessed it: after he retired he was the beneficiary of multiple education and corporate sinecures. And of course dredged up to lend a patina of credibility to the ridiculous Trump-Russia fraud.

So, to review: the people in charge of our military, foreign intelligence and domestic federal law enforcement on 9/11 – the people on who’s watch 3,000 Americans were massacred – all retired to cushy positions of power and influence. That is what went wrong. These three men should have been shot; and if we were feeling merciful after THREE THOUSAND of us were murdered due to their negligence, sent to jail for life. But, they not only didn’t suffer, they were rewarded for their abject failure.

You get what you pay for; we pay (through the nose) for incompetence and corruption…and so we’re awash in incompetence and corruption.

Bet you haven’t heard of Frank Wuterich all that much. You see, when he was a 25 year old Marine in 2005 his unit was hit by an IED in Anbar province and then a lot of shooting happened – as one might expect when an armed unit suddenly has a bomb explode among them – which resulted in civilian deaths. The initial report indicated that the dead civilians were caught in a crossfire but then people started claiming that the Marines – our Marines; soldiers of our United States Marine Corps; not Nazi Einsatzgruppen, but our Marines – deliberately targeted civilians. You know; because fresh-faced American kids who volunteer to fight for America are just the same as bloodthirsty Nazi savages. Given the nature of the beast at that time, the military opened an investigation and brought war crimes charges against 8 Marines. After a lot of years most of the charges against the defendants were dropped with Wuterich getting convicted of dereliction of duty. Because, you know, our Marines don’t go around massacring civilians. Because they’re American Marines. The good guys.

So, think about it: while those responsible for the criminal failure to stop 9/11 were awash in money and fame, the poor bastards we sent out to clean up their mess were being charged with war crimes…not because crimes happened, but because the political Left in the USA and around the world said war crimes were happening and our government went along with this. Who was the Marine’s CO in Iraq at the time? James Mattis; you know, the guy we thought was a rough, tough non-nonsense Marine when Trump appointed him Secretary of Defense. We should have checked a bit – but even in 2017 we were still rather starry eyed about our military officers. But the fact that Mattis agreed to court martial troops who – at worst – fired perhaps in a bit of panic when under fire should have told us just what sort of man he really was long before he resigned in protest against Trump’s effort to end our involvement in the Syrian Civil War. After his resignation, you guessed it, he landed a corporate sinecure. Mattis put his own Marines through hell because some Commie somewhere shouted “war crime!” even though Mattis must have known his Marines were not criminals. And then, apparently lacking any conscience at all, went off to a well paid retirement.

So, what went wrong? What happened to an event which united us all in righteousness? It was taken over by the corrupt, the cruel and incompetent. And when we at last had enough and voted in a man to change the system, that system broke the law to get him out of office. That is what went wrong.

NATO Must Go

Mark Noonan41 Comments

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. – Article 5, North Atlantic Treaty, 4/4/1949

This is the teeth of NATO – the part where all contracting Parties agree to come to the aid of any Party attacked by a Third Party. But do note the wording: it does not require any NATO member to use military force in support of an attacked NATO member. I think this was put in place to make sure that the Europeans could weasel out of helping the United States if we weren’t attacked by the Soviet Union. The treaty, of course, had the purpose of keeping the USSR out, the USA in and the Germans down. It was built for the very particular circumstances existing in Europe in the immediate aftermath of WWII. I would like to note that WWII ended 78 years ago.

There are hardly any people left alive who can even remember the war.

But here it is, 2023 and NATO is going strong – expanding. There’s talk of even letting Ukraine in. This has caused some comment about it immediately triggering WWIII but as you can see from the text of the treaty, it would only do that if Russia decided to treat it as a de-facto declaration of war by NATO. But if Russia refrained from attacking outside Ukraine it is almost certain that no other NATO member would declare war on Russia in support or Ukraine. In other words, Ukrainian membership in NATO would be symbolic. Kinda like the whole NATO exercise has been since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Ronald Reagan once said there is nothing so akin to immortality as a temporary government program. This has been true ever since government programs were invented. But the newest innovation of this is to keep treaties going eternally, regardless of changed circumstances. And just as we must at last kill off the idea of an eternal government program, so much we kill off the idea of an eternal treaty. Government programs are to be used to deal with a particular need or problem. So, too, are treaties.

In the aftermath of WWII with that horrendously bloody conflict and its shameful origins fresh in mind, what the leaders of the free world wanted was some assurance that they wouldn’t have that problem again: that is, a megalomaniac launching wars of conquest and extermination. In retrospect: figure the odds. Hitler was unique: never had been one like him, can’t imagine a set of circumstances where we get another. But you can at least see the logic of the people who signed the NATO treaty in 1949. Stalin was also a megalomaniac and the USSR was committed to carrying Communism all over the world. It was felt – reasonably – that a bit of collective security by the non-Communist powers would guarantee against the USSR launching a war of conquest.

We should have been paying a little more attention to Stalin’s history on that – it was Stalin who shut down the Leninist/Trotskyite project of using direct force to spread Communism. Stalin – correctly – felt the USSR lacked the power to do that and, also, that direct conflict had incalculable possibilities which could easily end in disaster for the USSR. Stalin would grab what he could, subvert as much as possible: but he was never going to launch a direct attack on the West…and his successors, sitting pretty with swell lives, were even less inclined for any direct conflict. And if they had been a bit frisky, the fact that it was the mid 1960s before the USSR recovered from WWII was also a restraining factor.

Be that as it may, the NATO treaty was signed and we had our collective security against the remote possibility of the USSR launching an attack through the Fulda Gap. NATO provided zero security against internal subversion by the USSR of NATO States and as this was the primary means of Soviet attack that is…kinda strange that it wasn’t integral to NATO. Almost like, just maybe, some of the people in charge of crafting NATO put together something only useful at stopping what wasn’t going to happen but did nothing to stop what was already happening in spades. Weird, huh? But, the Cambridge Five were still active as NATO was created – as were various spy networks in the US State Department…and it isn’t like even to this day we’ve uncovered everyone who was working for the USSR at the time. Interesting thing to look into, but it need not detain us here for long. Though I would like to point out that the Cold War would have been over in a few years if NATO was a replacement for the UN with all NATO members breaking off relations with the USSR and allies and refusing to have any dealings with them. But, such was not seen as the thing to do at the time.

At all events, we had our defense against the 8th Guards Army – we were definitely ready at a moment’s notice to stop it from driving to the Rhine. But just FYI, the 8th Guards Army – currently constituted as Russia’s 8th Guards Combined Arms Army – isn’t in the Fulda Gap preparing to drive to the Rhine. It is, in fact, in Ukraine. It is, then, nothing we need to be too concerned about. It would take a rather stunning bit of Russian military success to bring the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army into a position threatening NATO. And yet we still have NATO as if the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army were an imminent threat (which is never really was, even way back when). So, why are we keeping NATO?

Same reason we are keeping the government programs: vested interests. Financial and political powers obtain a great deal of their money and political influence via NATO. They will keep it going forever if they can – and just like the government bureaucrats inventing new problems for bureaucrats to solve, so NATO keeps finding new security threats to guard against. But still nothing about the internal subversion of the West. NATO didn’t care about that then, doesn’t care about it now. We’ve got Marxist nimrods destroying our nations but NATO isn’t fighting against that! Nope: gotta worry about the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army trying to conquer the Donbas. As if that matters when domestic threats are trying to destroy family, faith and property.

It is time for a bit of a reality check.

59% of the world’s population lives in Asia. 17% lives in Africa. Only 9% lives in Europe. It is just a fact that Europe is not remotely the most important region on Earth. By far it is Asia with Africa coming in second. American political, trade and military thought should be geared towards dealing with the risks and rewards of Asia and Africa. Europe is a backwater. Declining share of global GDP. Declining population. Militarily nearly impotent. There is absolutely zero chance that Europe would send an army to help us fight a major war in Asia or Africa, let alone help defend American territory here in North America. There is nothing we need in Europe. World War Two was a long time ago. There will not rise in Europe a Hitlerian monster to threaten the world…no matter how much NATO propagandists try to make out Putin to be Hitler’s mini-me. And even if Putin were a Hitler…Russia’s GDP is along the size of South Korea’s. They simply don’t have the physical power to threaten the USA.

Whatever use NATO ever had for the United States is long past now. We don’t need NATO. In fact, by remaining in NATO and keeping significant military resources in Europe we actively weaken our ability to influence the course of policy in Asia and Africa. To put it bluntly: remaining in NATO is tailor-made to help China flex muscle in Asia and Africa. And the Chinese are flexing that muscle. Just look up how deeply Chinese money and influence have penetrated Africa (and now moving into South America) and you can see how downright asinine our concentration on Europe has been. If our foreign policy was directly controlled from Beijing they wouldn’t do it any different than we are right now. It is time to move in a new direction.

It is time to leave NATO. Pull out of it: give our notice and leave. Our risks and rewards are in Africa and Asia. But cutting our ties to Europe we’ll no longer have the political disadvantage of ties with those Powers who colonized Africa and Asia. We’ll be able to craft policy based entirely on identified mutual needs with Asian and African nations. Rely on it, India doesn’t want a powerful China. Russia doesn’t, either, but we’ve burned so many bridges there it will be a while before we can sensibly talk to the Russians. But not being in NATO would be an immense relief to Russo-American relations. If you look at a map of the globe, the USA and Russia are natural allies. It was a shame we came into conflict with Russia. Well past time to bury the hatchet. But even absent that – Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia and a host of other Asian nations have a vested interest in curbing Chinese ambitions. An alliance with the USA – with our absolute pledge to remain out of their internal affairs – is just what they need…just as what we need is a collection of powers bordering or near China tying down Chinese power which would otherwise be directed against us. Meanwhile, over in Africa and freed from our connections to the former colonial overlords, we’ll be able to work deals with Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, etc to build up their economies and tie them to us rather than to China (much more valuable to us to build an Interstate quality highway in Nigeria than to spend money on NATO). A China directly challenged by the USA and allies in Asia and Africa will have no resources to spend on penetrating South America. It is all win. If we change with the times.

Or we can hang on to the antique NATO alliance, be tied down uselessly in Europe while China builds alliances with India and Russia against us.

Isolationism is Best

Mark Noonan44 Comments

David Frum took Senator Lee to task over his refusal to back the war in Ukraine – stating that failure to back the Administration when its helping a NATO effort is tantamount to backing Russia. So it has been in our foreign affairs since WWI – failure to enthusiastically back Administration foreign and war policy is treason.

To my shame, I used to sign on to this. I am glad I’m past it now.

To be sure, there is such a thing as treason – we define it directly in our Constitution. One of the few definitions of crime in it.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. – Article III, section 3

Now, you can make an argument that refusing to condemn Russia over Ukraine is some sort of adherence to our enemies, but I do believe that stretches it far beyond the breaking point. Adhering to our enemies in the Founder’s minds would have been what Benedict Arnold did: taking an officer’s commission in the Royal Army to fight against us. It is true that after the Revolution many Loyalists were mistreated and forced to flee the new nation – and good riddance to them. As Samuel Adams put it, I hope their chains sat lightly upon them and we have very much forgotten they were ever our countrymen. But nothing was done with that very large segment of the population which was neither Patriot nor Loyalist. The bottom line is that a great number of Americans didn’t care one way or the other about the outcome of the war. And after the war, they simply became citizens along with the Patriots and proceeded to play their role as citizens in the formation of our Republic. Given this, I don’t think that anyone refusing to back Ukraine can in any reasonable definition be considered a traitor.

But that is what the Frums of the world consider them to be. They are so committed to the global order that they cannot allow any dissenting view from it. We must be involved. Isolationism must be wrong. And so on like that. It is very useful for them to take such a line as it excuses them from having to argue in favor of the war or the policy. It allows them to merely slander those who disagree with it.

The only war we’ve had since the Civil War which wasn’t a war of choice was the war against Japan. One can argue that various policies of the USA provoked Japan into attacking and I will agree…but the choice still lay with Japan. They did commit the overt act against a Power which was not in any way threatening offensive military action against Japan. But other than that war, everything has been a choice. Sure, a lesser argument can be made that the war against Hitler’s Germany also wasn’t a choice as Hitler declared war on us. But our sending by far the largest part of our military force to Europe was a choice. We didn’t have to do it. Backed by American aid, the Anglo-Russian combine in Europe could never be defeated by Germany. Open question whether this combine absent an American Army and Air Force could have beat down the Germans as was in fact done…but the bottom line is that we didn’t have to be there. And neither have we had to be anywhere else.

But everywhere else we have been, right? And now think about it: in each case the justification for action was Hitler. Because Hitler managed to get rolling against people who didn’t want to put up a fight it became necessary for us to put up a fight for everyone else, forever. And by one means or another (though lately explicitly) each enemy we’re told to go fight is another Hitler who, if not stopped right now and by us, will grow to a Hitlerian threat to the world. It is really rather crude – indeed, cartoonish – propaganda once you see through it, but it has worked very well. And so they keep doing it – and now Senator Lee is a Hitler-appeasing traitor…for not wanting an open-ended commitment to Ukraine’s government (which is getting to be m ore unsavory in action all the time).

It is good to point out that it was only in hindsight that Hitler had to be stopped regardless of cost. Anyone telling you that the leaders of the world knew what Hitler was up to in the death camps is lying or misinformed. Sure, plenty of word did get out but it was like all other word out of an occupied territory…you couldn’t be sure. It was only when the camps were opened that we knew for certain what was happening…and everyone was shocked because nobody, not even the strongest opponents of Hitlerism, thought that an advanced people like the Germans could really round up men, women and children and exterminate them. So, it was good that we got deep into Europe. Had we not, many more millions of innocents would have died. But that was happenstance. It wasn’t intended. We didn’t invade Europe to shut down Auschwitz; it was shut down as a merciful byproduct of the main desire. But this hindsight is now transformed into foresight for the globalist propagandists and everyone they hate has to be Hitler and we all have to jump aboard or we’re allowing another Holocaust to occur.

Drivel.

Hitler was a unique thing. What he did and how he was able to accomplish it will never be repeated. This is not to say that we won’t come across people willing to murder millions. Heck, some of our own leaders are willing to murder millions to appease the weather god. But there won’t ever again be a racial supremacist like Hitler determined to conquer territory for his people and exterminate a group identified as the sole enemy of humanity. It just won’t happen again. Putin not only isn’t a Hitler, he can’t be a Hitler. He might be twenty different versions of SOB, but he’s not an existential threat to Europe or the world. He’s a problem. But is he our problem?

I say, no. Europe is collectively far more powerful than Russia. Just between Poland, Germany, France and Britain a military, naval and air force can be raised sufficient to make Russia back down. And with France and Britain having nuclear weapons, there’s a complete stand off on that level. I can see why Poland doesn’t want the Russian Bear to take Ukraine and once again hold land bordering a Poland which for centuries has been seen by Russia as a sort of redoubt to be held by Russia against Europe. But this tells me the Poles better build a first rate military force and make alliance with Germany and, also, Romania and Hungary who also don’t want a Russian army camped on their borders. And if the Poles or the Europeans in general don’t do this?

Well, how does that become an American problem? People who won’t defend themselves are to be defended by us? For what purpose? If the Poles don’t want to work to keep the Russkies away, why should a kid from Ohio have to do it?

And why is it our problem if the Syrians are having a civil war? Did the Syrians intervene in ours? Sudan descends into chaos. Why is that our problem? I can see keeping foreigners out of the Americas, but what interest do I as an American have in African, European and Asian affairs?

Oh, you can talk me into having an interest. But this would require truly reciprocal alliances and allies who maintain powerful military forces. I don’t think I should have to send an American army to defend Poland unless, say, a Polish army is pledged to come to east Asia to help us fight the Chinese. And that Polish army better be first rate. Well trained. Best possible equipment. Ready at a moment’s notice to fight. See where I’m going? It isn’t an alliance if I’ve got an unlimited obligation to my ally and he has no obligation to me. If he’s allowed to be slack in preparedness and doesn’t have to bleed with us when we’re attacked, then it isn’t an alliance. That is a client relationship – and if Poland is our client, fine. They can pay us 3% of their GDP every year. Same as everyone else in the NATO “alliance”. We’re the first global empire to be the sugar-daddy and its just stupid.

I want us to stop this. To give up the Wilsonian demand that the world be made safe for Democracy. I don’t care what the world is: I only care what America is. And I don’t like being called a traitor – with all that implies – because I don’t want Americans to bleed for the Donbas. We’ve poisoned ourselves with alliances. It is time to bring them to an end. The war is over. Come on home, America. Let the foreigners fight. Advise them carefully that attacking us is suicidal, but leave them alone. It isn’t our world.

There Are No Hitlers to Fight

Mark Noonan34 Comments

A lot of the justification for supporting Ukraine against Russia is based upon the memory of World War Two – specifically, the run-up to it when the Western powers had multiple opportunities to stop Hitler early and at relatively low cost, thus sparing the world the horrors of World War Two and the Holocaust. In today’s world, Putin is Hitler and Ukraine is the Rhineland or Austria…or maybe even Czechoslovakia. The main thing being asserted is that we must stop Putin on the Don or we’ll eventually face Putin on the Vistula, or maybe even on the Rhine.

This is drivel.

Putin isn’t Hitler. That is, Putin – as much a rat-bastard as you want him to be – isn’t propagating an ideology of racial superiority where everyone not of the Master Race must die or become slaves. That was the unique threat of Hitler and it simply does not exist in Putin. And this is true even if he wants to reassemble the entirety of the Russian Empire. Bad? Sure. But not an embodiment of human evil which all decent people must stand against. Unless you want to assert that any rule not consented to is absolutely immoral and must be stopped…in which case, gear up for lots of war all around the world because there are submerged peoples everywhere.

Additionally, Putin’s Russia is not Hitler’s Germany in the military sense. In 1939 the Germans had a well trained army led by officers of the highest caliber who knew how to rapidly move forces towards strategic objectives. World War One showed that even absent a Hitler, Germany with its marvelous General Staff was a standing threat. As we have seen in Ukraine, the Russian military isn’t remotely of that quality. They are building up now for what looks like will be a traditional Russian steamroller – just going to flatten the Ukrainians by sheer weight of numbers. It may work; but whether it does or doesn’t, it still won’t amount to a military force capable of arriving on the Rhine any time soon.

The bottom line is that there are no more Hitlers to fight. Almost certainly, there never will be another Hitler to fight. The more you stand back in time and look at it the more astonished you grow over the whole thing – how entirely out of phase it was with humanity. That a decidedly second-rate intellect like Hitler’s could galvanize a people to follow where he lead even though it was pretty obviously suicidal astonishes…and you then mourn that this wicked beast of a man inherited an industrial base and General Staff capable of at least giving his insane ideas a shot. But, he won’t be repeated. He can’t be repeated; the particular circumstances which gave rise to him don’t exist and can’t ever exist again. We don’t have to worry, that is, about having that one, last chance to stop a Hitler – because there is no Hitler to stop.

And without a Hitler, things become a bit more reasonable. Keep in mind that World War Two in Europe went on two years after the Germans were decisively defeated and where further resistance was just going to lead to lots of useless deaths and the utter physical destruction of Germany. Anyone other than Hitler would have called it quits after Kursk, or at the latest when the Allies established themselves in Normandy. He kept it going because he was insane – certain that if he just willed victory, it would still come even though the material factors demonstrated conclusively that it could not come. Putin isn’t like that – he’ll fight as long as he thinks he can get advantage out of it and as soon as costs exceed benefits, he’ll call it quits and make peace…even if just a temporary peace while he plans the next round. The Chinese, too, are not insane: they may well attack us or our allies and they’ll fight hard…and if they can decisively defeat us, they will; but whether in victory of defeat, they will be reasonable…quitting if the gamble fails and not dreaming of exterminating us and colonizing the United States if victorious – Hitler, keep in mind, had named Goebbles Gauleiter of the USA…his job to exterminate all Jews, blacks, Slavs and other undesirables and turn the remaining population into Germans. We simply do not face that, no matter how badly the Chinese defeat us in a theoretical future war.

Whether or not we decide to help Ukraine is then not an existential question, but a prudential judgement. The fate of the world does not hang in the balance. The enemy does not propose to alter the world to fit his views…he just wants to grab some things and then profit from the theft. It is, then, just the normal run for a war. And if you are not directly attacked, then the decision to intervene must be based upon the cold, hard realities of what your nation needs. And in this I’ve yet to see a rational argument for why the USA must be concerned about who governs Ukraine. I cannot see any threat to the territorial integrity of the USA. I can’t see that our Republican form of government will topple with a Russian army in Kiev. I see no concern about our naval supremacy if Russia obtains a naval base in Odessa. There is no worry that Russian goods produced in Ukraine will crowd American products out of the global market. The only defensible war is a war of defense – what American thing is defended in Ukraine? If you can provide that, then I might see my way to supporting American intervention…but the war has gone on for a year and I still can’t see anything for an American to be concerned with.

This is not to say that nobody else should be concerned. Poland and Romania should be deeply concerned. As should the Baltic States and to a lesser – but still great – degree Germany, France and Britain. The combined populations and industrial capacity of these most concerned nations are vastly more than Russia’s: if I were German or French or Polish, I would be working very diligently to build the military force and forge the iron-clad alliances necessary to ensure that my side can issue Russia an ultimatum and make it stick. But I am not German, French of Polish. I am American; and I’ve no concern in this matter.

It is time for we, the people of the United States, to stop looking for foreign dragons to slay. We won’t find any. After Hitler’s death and the dissolution of the USSR, there is no ideology outside the USA proposing to destroy us. That we have our own, internal enemies seeking our destruction is another issue, but is actually another reason to come home: we have enough on our plate inside the USA to take up our time…we don’t need foreign problems in addition.

And the world really doesn’t want us to fix things. Sure, they want us to pay for the Ukraine war. If it goes south, they’ll be delighted to watch American teenagers being blown to pieces to retrieve the situation. But they don’t want to obey us; they don’t want to change. They want to keep their fetid, little hatreds and bigotries…their ridiculous customs and slavish devotion to local mountebanks. Everyone likes it when someone pays for dinner – nobody likes it when that guy comes home and tries to organize your life for you. We have no business outside the United States. It is not our concern. We are our concern. And as we have nuclear weapons, carrier battle groups and 400 million privately owned firearms, nobody is ever going to try to invade us. Stop looking for the ghost of Hitler – come home and let the world be.

From the Ukraine to the Nuclear Holocaust is But a Step

Mark Noonan28 Comments

The Ukrainians blow up a bridge. Putin calls it terrorism and in retaliation rains down a bunch of bombs on Ukrainian cities…and then nitwits in the West start calling for direct strikes on Russia.

Not liking where this seems to be heading.

As I’ve said all along, there is zero American strategic interest in who governs the Donbas or, indeed, all of Ukraine. It wouldn’t change the balance of power against us in the least. On the other hand, Poland, Germany and Romania (and, to a lesser extent, France, Italy, Spain and England) have a vested interest in the matter. Combined, they have land forces numbering about 170,000 – and reserves can be mobilized to make them larger. France, Italy, Spain and Britain can back that up with about 380,000 troops (once again, more when fully mobilized). This doesn’t count air and naval forces. Nor economic power. That is more than enough to deter Russia – especially as Europe’s population and industrial power is larger than Russia’s so in a long war, Europe wins no matter what the Russians do (and France and the UK are nuclear-armed, so that balances against Russia’s nuclear weapons). Quick and cool-headed diplomacy backed by a credible threat of force likely would have gotten the Russians to back down.

So, why wasn’t that done? Because while quick and cool-headed diplomacy backed by credible force would likely get Russia to back down, it wouldn’t certainly do so. In other words: the Europeans might have to fight. They don’t want to. And I don’t think they want to ever: not even if their homelands were at stake. Certainly not for the Donbas. Europe is so sunk in narcissistic sloth and cowardice that I doubt there is the plain courage to stand up to a bully…so, they asked us to step in and they are pouring weapons into Ukraine hoping that somehow the 41 million Ukrainians can defeat 145 million Russians (do the math, guys).

The chances that anyone will use a nuke are low, but as I pointed out previously, they are rising all the time. The whole concept of using nuclear weapons being unthinkable was something implanted by propaganda to make sure, first and foremost, that the United States never took advantage of its overwhelming superiority in that area. I still doubt that Putin will use them – he can put into uniform about 3 million soldiers and that should be more than sufficient to deal with Ukraine. But you never can tell – there are stories rolling around that US and NATO special forces are boots on the ground assisting the Ukraine on the battlefield. If they are, it is likely intel that they are providing – data on Russian strength and intentions obtained from our satellites and human intelligence capabilities. If this is so, and if such manages to route a significant Russian force thus opening up Russian territory to Ukrainian invasion, things could get dicey very fast.

It is a very delicate situation right now and I very much doubt that our political or military leadership has a clue how to end it. They want victory, of course – or at least something that can be presented on TV as a victory (our Ruling Class lives and dies by how things appear on TV): but nobody – not NATO and not us – wants to put in the real effort necessary to secure a victory. Its all just a hope.

But Putin isn’t hoping – he’s trying to win. Like all Russian leaders he’s confronted with the fact his Russian people simply aren’t good at things which require organization and timing. So, he seems to be turning to the tried-and-true Russian method of just pounding his way through to success. You hope that Ukraine has produced a general who can confound Putin’s plans – and swiftly, but without seeming a mortal threat to Russia. And you hope that nobody at State or DoD is contemplating something like a covert attack on Russia’s military infrastructure by American forces.

I don’t know how it will come out – but literally anything is possible given the level of stupidity and ignorance our leaders have. Let’s just pray for peace – that somehow God grants us mercy and this war just blows over.

Russo-Ukraine War (Part 2)

Mark Noonan15 Comments

The Russians continue to grind slowly ahead:

Not a lot, but no apparent ability by Ukraine to stop the advance. There was a story that Poland would turn its old Mig-29s over to us and then we’d hand them off to Ukraine. I don’t know who came up with that stupid idea but my bet is the Russians told us they wouldn’t go make believe on it and so the idea was scotched by DoD.

Pudding Brain banned the import of Russian oil without, of course, any effort to ramp up American production: no, he’s going hat in hand to Venezuela, Iran and Saudi Arabia to beg them to boost production. This does require him to lift the sanctions on Venezuelan oil. I guess this means that whether or not you’re a bad guy depends on the Narrative of the Moment. And right now that Narrative is Putin Bad.

Read that a restaurant in Brazil will stop offering Beef Stroganoff. This is ridiculous. But, also, think about it: this level of xenophobia against Russians has been generated globally and in mere weeks. And you know they can turn this on anyone who displeases them. Heck, we already saw it: they turned it on Trump and got the whole world to hate him. I mean, the whole world open to Western propaganda, that is. Places where this is lacking or where there remains independent press were more friendly to Trump (India, Israel, eg).

It occurred to me that while Putin is in the wrong – starting hostilities unless you are faced with obvious and imminent attack is morally wrong – we are not looking at it from his perspective. And I thought we were always supposed to do that? I guess not. At least, not in come cases. But Putin’s perspective is Russian. This doesn’t make it right, but it does make it something we should understand.

First thing: that massive nation we can see on the map looming over Europe and Asia looks a lot different from the inside. It is all frontier. Vulnerable frontier. Open to attack at scores of points at any given time. And then outside the Urals and the Volga River, Russia lacks any obvious defensive line: it is all flat, open country easy to traverse by an enemy.

Second, there have been attempts to conquer Russia from Europe. The most recent is the most telling, but prior to it there were French, Swedish and Polish efforts along these lines. Russians don’t see Europe as the home of brothers and sisters…but rather as the home of rapacious conquerors who must be kept at bay.

Third, the Russians don’t see the Ukrainians as a different nation. It was called “little Russia” in Imperial times. Here:

That is a 1904 map. And I’m not saying the Russians are right nor that Ukrainians don’t have a right to be – just pointing out relevant historic facts. In the end, it doesn’t matter what you and I believe about it – in this case, the crucial person is Putin and what he believes. And I read his article just before the war: he asserts very firmly that Ukrainians are Russians. And he further believes that the only reason there is a Ukrainian identity apart from Russia is because of influence peddling from the West. Also, he’s probably only barely heard of Stalin’s famine in the area (its not like Soviet textbooks covered it when Putin was growing up); and even if he did, he would probably view it as a sad necessity. Ukraine was liberated from the Muslims by Russians. Kiev is the cradle of Russian civilization. The Battle of Poltava which secured Russia as a Great Power was fought in Ukraine. In other words, there are solid reasons for the Russians to believe what they believe.

Anyways, that would be the Russian perspective – and now add to it the entire world becoming overtly hostile not just to Putin, but to Russians and all things Russian, and you’ve got the perfect potion to turn even Putin-doubters into loyalists.

It ain’t just oil – Russia and Ukraine both provide a lot of wheat on the global market. We here in the USA will be fine – I’m confident our wheat and corn farmers can see how things are going and are doing what they can to maximize production. But for the poor in Africa and Asia, this could spell famine.

Ilhan Omar (D-MN) made a statement against cancel culture a few weeks back and I was all, “busted clock, twice a day”. Well, the “twice” just happened when she pointed out the risks of willy-nilly flooding Ukraine with weapons without accountability and the presence of militia groups of, shall we say?, questionable loyalty. If she’s right about a third thing, I’ll faint dead away. What you’ll find strange (ie, not strange at all) is that the MSM seems to have forgotten to cover Omar’s statement on this. Almost like she went off script and is, at least temporarily, aligned with White Supremacy or some such.

The Russo-Ukraine War

Mark Noonan32 Comments

As I sit down to write, there are reports that Kiev is surrounded and not surrounded and that Zelenesky has agreed to talk and not agreed to talk. In other words, nobody really knows what is going on. This is the most talked-about but least reported-on war I’ve ever seen. I think this is because we lack any real war correspondents – people who would actually go into the combat zones and see what they could see. Those old reporters would get things wrong from time to time, but not usually: the willingness of people to pay them to risk their lives for a story was dependent upon accurate reporting. These days, the reporters all stay where they can get an easy TV hookup and a drink after their daily 20 minutes of broadcasting the latest rumor they picked up over lunch.

The MSM is filled with stories of glorious Ukrainian victory. Social media has a plethora of accounts putting out alleged video of the fighting. But I’ve literally seen the exact same picture described as Russian and Ukrainian troops surrendering. Part of our problem here is that there’s no physical difference between Russians and Ukrainians and their military equipment is similar. Anything can be anything and none of us can really tell if a particular armored column driving through a non-descript Ukrainian town belongs to either side.

That said, the Russians clearly have advanced, and in some cases pretty deep into Ukrainian territory. The eyes of the world are fixed on Kiev but the real action is the Russian advance out of Crimea towards Mariupol in the east and Odessa in the west. Especially towards Mariupol because if the Russians get there, we might find a significant portion of the Ukrainian army is encircled. And that might be why Zelensky wants to talk (if those reports are correct): work a deal before the Ukrainian army in the east has to capitulate (in the face of Russian air power, a withdrawal is probably not feasible).

Part of the problem the world has in dealing with this is that we don’t know Putin’s intentions. He hasn’t really stated them. My thinking when it started is that he wanted the line of the Dnieper: essentially taking the part of Ukraine where ethnic Russians make up the bulk of the population. That still might be it – with the moves towards Kiev and Odessa merely to obtain bargaining chips to obtain Ukrainian agreement to surrender the Donbas. But there is a chance he wants the whole of the Ukraine. That, I think, would be foolish on Putin’s part as he’d be taking control of a hostile population and pretty much force Poland and Romania into massive military build up and close alliance.

Naturally, the Democrats are trying to pitch this in a manner which forces us to back them politically. We have to rally ’round the flag, right? If recent polling is correct, that isn’t happening: Pudding Brain is cratering to his lowest ratings yet. I know some people who have become emotionally invested in opposing Putin and this has made them turn the Ukrainians into pure heroes. I’m not having any of that. The Ukrainian government has been corrupt to the bone since it was set up after the fall of the USSR. They had 8 years to prepare for this and it doesn’t look like much was done – they should have had layered defensive positions and a plan to mobilize the entire population at need. But I guess giving no-show jobs to Hunter Biden was the best they could do. I am sympathetic to their plight, but only to an extent – the people of Ukraine are ultimately responsible for the sort of government they endure. If they truly loved their country, they would have made sure that no matter what else happened, national defense was carried forward with conviction. They didn’t and now Ivan is knocking at the gates.

On the other hand, I also know people who are making a hero out of Putin and so they cast aspersions on the Ukrainians. Putin’s propaganda is that he’s only going in to rid Ukraine of neo-Nazis. This is based upon the Azov Battalion of the Ukrainian militia and the actions of Ukrainians during WWII.

The Azov Battalion originated in the 2014 conflict – and it clearly has links to white nationalist groups and some of its symbols are obviously based on Waffen-SS symbols. But I doubt they hope to revive a Nazi empire. The symbols they use are more for anti-Russian than pro-Nazi reasons. This is because during WWII quite a lot of Ukrainians did work with the Germans against the Soviet government. They also fought the Germans quite a bit. In the end, the outside observer can only look with a bit of sympathy on people who were caught between Nazis and Bolsheviks. If you were Ukrainian in 1941 you had family members who had been starved to death, murdered or otherwise brutally oppressed by agents of Soviet power. It wasn’t just a portion of the population: all of them had reasons to hate the USSR with a white hot passion. In come the Nazis and the Bolsheviks are gone…the Nazis then proceed to murder, rape and loot to their hearts content. This did cause some Ukrainians to become pro-Soviet partisans…but quite a number let that Nazi brutality roll right off their backs and they became ant-Soviet partisans. If you ever wanted to know how bad Stalin’s rule was, there’s your answer: some people would rather help Nazis if that meant keeping Stalin out.

And they kept up the fight – for ten years after the end of WWII, Ukrainians continued a forlorn struggle against Soviet power. Without any outside support they were eventually crushed…but the memory of them endured and their symbols remained potent to Ukrainians who remember and dislike Russian rule. And, so, there you go: the Azov Battalion. So, I don’t put much stock in pro-Russian claims that Ukraine is a neo-Nazi hotbed.

I think that this is one of those events where we’re just going to have to see how it comes out. It is, though, a war I want no part of. I don’t even want to arm the Ukrainians at this point as I’m concerned that we’ll just end up supplying the Russians as we did the Taliban. The Europeans can provide all the aid Ukraine needs – let them do it. Keep our soldiers home – at most I’m ok with providing humanitarian relief.