Category Archives: War Commentary

Economics, Education, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, War Commentary

Communism

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Commemorating (but not celebrating) a century of it:

It would be simplistic to blame all of these events on ideology. We live in an imperfect world and those imperfections have been unequally distributed. No conceivable government of Russia, or China, or Venezuela would have left no citizens impoverished or oppressed. Nonetheless, a hundred years of communism has presented us with an intimidating record of catastrophe, in a moral, political, and economic sense. Time and again, ambition has exceeded potential. Time and again, coercion has encouraged conflict. Time and again, violence has perpetuated itself. Time and again, absolute power has hardened into tyranny.

These disasters were concealed, excused and exacerbated by Western apologists and traitors. Walter Duranty of the New York Times lied to America about the scale of the Soviet famine. Intellectuals from George Bernard Shaw to Jean Paul Sartre to Eric Hobsbawm rationalised atrocities. Spies in British and American institutions betrayed military and intelligence secrets. As Europe reeled from the horrors of world war, and as the West endured the austerity of the depression, the impulse towards radicalism was understandable. But as the reality of communism was exposed even dull-minded apologists ran out of excuses.

A recent article in the New York Times offers a nostalgic account of growing up as a communist. Its author implies that the reality of Stalinism was made clear by Kruschev in 1956. But two decades earlier, Gareth Jones and Malcolm Muggeridge had exposed widespread starvation in the Soviet Union. The show trials had been reported across America and Europe. The Madden Committee had revealed the truth of Katyn. Orwell had published Animal Farm, and Koestler Darkness at Noon. By 1956, ignorance was abominable.

And it should be even more so today, but it has a sick appeal to something in human nature.

[Update a few minutes later]

I wish this were less related: The Cruelty Of Blue. As goes Puerto Rico, so will go many Democrat-run cities on the mainland.

Education, History, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, War Commentary

That Time Of Year Again

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It’s Victims Of Communism Day, 2017:

This year is a particularly important time to remember the victims of Communism because of the approaching one hundredth anniversary of the October Revolution – Bolshevik takeover of Russia. The Soviet Union was not the most oppressive communist regime. It probably did not match the even more thoroughgoing totalitarianism of the Khmer Rouge and North Korea. Nor did it kill the most people – a record held by Mao Zedong the Chinese communists. But the Soviet experiment was the principal model for all the later communist states, and it is hard to imagine communists seizing control of so much of the world without it. In addition to the significant material aid that the Soviets provided to communists in other nations, the communist seizure of power in Russia also greatly boosted the ideology’s prospects elsewhere.

Meanwhile…

Political Commentary, Technology and Society, War Commentary

North Korea

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Assessing its war plans:

Recognizing that in war nothing ever goes entirely as expected, and that there are some major unknowns, this is based on what we do know about North Korea’s force structure, its comparative strengths, and terrain and other considerations—along with my own assessment of how Korean War II would initially unfold. But regardless of how it played out, one thing is near certain: It would entail horrific destruction and suffering. Tens or hundreds of thousands could become casualties. In defeat, North Korea would become a 25-million strong humanitarian catastrophe. And that is just with conventional weapons: The possible consequences of attacking Seoul with WMD are almost too awful to contemplate. There is a role for force here—a strong ROK/US posture has certainly constrained North Korean aggression for decades—and in no way should DPRK threats be simply acceded to. But under current conditions, and given the scale of likely destruction, planners should strongly question whether each DPRK provocation—even the imminent development of a ICBM—justifies risking such a war.

As a general once said, war consists of sh***y options, and this is probably the worst problem currently on the global state.

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

The Iran “Deal”

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It just keeps looking worse and worse:

When federal prosecutors and agents learned the true extent of the releases, many were shocked and angry. Some had spent years, if not decades, working to penetrate the global proliferation networks that allowed Iranian arms traders both to obtain crucial materials for Tehran’s illicit nuclear and ballistic missile programs and, in some cases, to provide dangerous materials to other countries.

“They didn’t just dismiss a bunch of innocent business guys,” said one former federal law enforcement supervisor centrally involved in the hunt for Iranian arms traffickers and nuclear smugglers. “And then they didn’t give a full story of it.”

In its determination to win support for the nuclear deal and prisoner swap from Tehran — and from Congress and the American people — the Obama administration did a lot more than just downplay the threats posed by the men it let off the hook, according to POLITICO’s findings.

Through action in some cases and inaction in others, the White House derailed its own much-touted National Counterproliferation Initiative at a time when it was making unprecedented headway in thwarting Iran’s proliferation networks. In addition, the POLITICO investigation found that Justice and State Department officials denied or delayed requests from prosecutors and agents to lure some key Iranian fugitives to friendly countries so they could be arrested. Similarly, Justice and State, at times in consultation with the White House, slowed down efforts to extradite some suspects already in custody overseas, according to current and former officials and others involved in the counterproliferation effort.

And as far back as the fall of 2014, Obama administration officials began slow-walking some significant investigations and prosecutions of Iranian procurement networks operating in the U.S. These previously undisclosed findings are based on interviews with key participants at all levels of government and an extensive review of court records and other documents.

“Clearly, there was an embargo on any Iranian cases,” according to the former federal supervisor.

It was treasonous, really, and probably at the instigation of Valerie Jarrett.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Socialism Denial

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It’s the equivalent of Holocaust denial for the Left.

Yup. Particularly considering that the Holocaust itself was a leftist project. There’s nothing “right wing” (if by that you mean conservative, or libertarian) about rounding up and murdering people wholesale.

[Late-morning update]

Related: Venezuela’s socialist hell. This is always the inevitable end state, but “Hey, this time it will be different,” say Bernie supporters.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Twenty die in Venezuelan protests. Sadly, the only hope for them is to get them arms, since the government has confiscated them and armed its own supporters. As I said, this is the inevitable end state, and ultimately why we have a Second Amendment here.