I was expecting some naivete and pandering to the Left from President Obama’s foreign policy. But so far it is trending worse, much worse, than I thought it would. Cue the violins (literally!) and butterflies here, for Obama’s most recent … Continue reading →
What important military defeats has America ever known? If you don’t count the South in the Civil War, we have a single one: Vietnam. The consequences of that defeat, in a land so far away, were easy for Americans to … Continue reading →
I first read John Updike’s Vietnam War essay “On Not Being a Dove” in 1989. That’s when his memoir Self-Consciousness, the book in which it was included, was first published. At the time the essay seemed to me to be … Continue reading →
I recently reread the two-volume graphic novel Maus, by Art Spiegelman. It struck me once again, as it did the first time I read these books, that they should not work on any level. And yet, against all odds, they … Continue reading →
Sixty-seven years ago today Pearl Harbor was attacked. That’s long enough ago that only the elderly remember the day and its aftermath with any clarity. Several generations—including my own tiresome one, the baby boomers—have come up since then, and the … Continue reading →
It’s pretty much “mission accomplished” in Iraq. But it’s a victory we’re not willing to openly claim. In another world and time, this war would have been lauded as one of the least brutal in history, although it was fought … Continue reading →
It’s ironic that the surge’s success has made the issue of the Iraq War less central rather than more in this campaign. “Ironic,” because the passage of time has made it clearer that, no matter what one thinks of the … Continue reading →
For those of us old enough to remember the most frigid days of the long Cold War, the recent Russian military action in Georgia has a familiar ring. Not exactly, of course; history never repeats itself, it merely rhymes—and sometimes … Continue reading →
Joe Conason thinks McCain doesn’t know much about history, in particular the Vietnam War and the lessons he should have learned from it. Conason, as the possessor of a 1975 degree in history from Brandeis where they no doubt taught … Continue reading →
Michael Ledeen writes in the WSJ about the problem the Allies had in recognizing, taking seriously, and then mobilizing against the danger represented by the Nazis prior to WWII. He likens this inaction to the current muddled response of the … Continue reading →
John Kerry has a piece in today’s Washington Post that champions Obama’s policy of talking to any and all comers, friend and foe alike. It’s full of Kerry’s overheated and outraged rhetoric towards the opposition. Bush’s mention of appeasement in … Continue reading →
Charles Krauthammer charts the shifting sands of Obama’s changing desire to talk to Iran, without preconditions and/or with. The responses in the comments section of his piece break down in the usual fashion. Supporters write, “You tell ’em, brother!” Haters … Continue reading →