Tag: war

Guest Post by Ol’ Remus

There’s been a bumper crop of well thought out, well documented predictions of catastrophic war, much of it retreaded 1950s-style doomsday scenarios. Life in the ’50s was bright but bounded by dark fatalism, death row except with good food, nice cars and rock & roll. But no prospect of a reprieve.

There were regular air raid siren and radio tests, year after year. Bomb shelter outfits did brisk business. There was a strong sense of inevitability to it, a “when” not “if”, so much so kids strained to look for the dreaded red star on passing aircraft. It’s part of why boomers are like they are. Would it all end today or after summer vacation? In the times that followed it was good for a chuckle but once again history rhymes. Once again there are predictions of extinction-level war. Once again bomb shelter outfits are doing brisk business.

Continue reading “WAR”

“As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Party realize, we cannot stand against big government at home while supporting it abroad. We cannot talk about fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying the rest of the world. We cannot talk about the budget deficit and spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of maintaining an American empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for cutting a few thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home while turning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly equals those of the rest of the world combined.”

Ron Paul

“Our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear.”

General Douglas McArthur

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”

Voltaire

Guest Post by The Zman

Early warfare, as best we can tell, was more like gang fights in the modern ghetto than the sort of stuff we associate with war in Antiquity. One settlement would round up some men, who would take on the men of the neighboring settlement. They went at one another in a melee, using axes, clubs and short swords, maybe, with the leaders right there in the middle of it, leading their war bands. A lot of it may have been ritualized, rather than actual combat, but that’s speculation. What’s clear is ti was small scale.

Continue reading “The New Ways Of War”