Blue about Blue Stars

Good morning, Stroock's Books commune. 

Here we are at the coffeeshop again, drinking mediocre coffee, just so we can get the hell out of the house for a couple of hours. The music is set to light adult-contemporary. Could be worse. 

We hit the weights yesterday for our third weights only gym session in ten days. We feel fine and the shoulder feels a lot better with the work. The act of lifting will cause us to put on weight, no? Something we noticed since we began our work with light dumbbells about 6 weeks ago. So much for that 235 lbs goal. Whatevs. Right now lifting feels good and we're seeing results. 

Related: we have an appointment with our cardiologist today. We'll see what he says. Let's keep our fingers crossed for pretty nurses. 

We want to wake up in the morning, make our coffee, tell Oldest Daughter to have a nice day at school, open our computer, go to the Times of Israel, and read a headline like the following, 'Commandos rescue several hostages.' We're frustrated that this has not yet happened. Israeli intelligence estimates that as many as 50 of the remaining hostages are dead. This blog wonders if they're all dead, and that's why the IDF hasn't rescued them. 

The Times of Israel says, 'Israel is open to allowing Hamas leader and October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar to go into exile in exchange for the release of all hostages and the end of Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip, NBC reports.' Stroock's Books finds this deal acceptable. And then the Israelis can just kill them later. You know what the imams say. Mossad: it's never and accident. 

An excellent article in foreign affairs by one Colin P. Clarke, Israel's Counterinsurgency Trap. Clarke argues Israel doesn't want to get bogged in Gaza rebuilding and running COIN operations there for the next decade. He quotes retired General David Petraeus, 'Repeating the slogan that defined the U.S. counterinsurgency effort that he oversaw in Iraq, Petraeus drove home a simple message: “Clear, hold, and build.”' Build what? Open a school, dig a well and make friends? How did that work in Iraq and Afghanistan? 

The Regime never learns. You can't conduct civil affairs ops with people who hate your guts, and who's guts you hate. Clarke goes on to talk about 'making peace'  bla bla bla, but on the COIN issue he's spot on. COIN in Gaza is a trap, a potential ulcer. The Israelis aren't trying to make friends. They're trying to defeat enemies. Once again, Stroock's Books calls on Israel to leave a smoldering pile of rubble in Gaza and walk away. We call our plan operation Lord Humongus. Rafah, the last remaining Hamas stronghold looms and Bibi has given the order to take it.

As previously noted, three Israeli divisions are on the northern border. Negotiations to get Hezbollah off the border continue. We're not optimistic. Or to put it another way, we're optimistic said negotiations will fail. Hezbollah must be destroyed south of the Litani. This part of Lebanon is mountainous and dotted with villages, each of which we assume Hezbollah has turned into a fortress. Hundreds of bunkers and hundreds of miles of tunnels lie beneath. Israel has fought here before. Exit question, is three Israeli divisions enough to push Hezbollah north of the Litani?

Hmmmm....we're wondering if all the effort were putting into the  World War 1990: Norway epilogue is really worth it. It feels like too little and not enough. We could send the rest of teh damn book to editing if we want to. And we kind of want to.

We have a draft of the War Night silo story. Said draft still needs tonnes of work, but it exists. We'll grapple with the story over the weekend. We still haven't solved the Alberta rancher plot conundrum. We've plenty of character, plot and ambience.  'So how does it end?' as Phil Collins once asked. The answer lies in the story somewhere (very often the case), yet we cannot find it.

Also, we need to choose which story we're writing for the cavalry/armor alternate history compellation to which we've been asked to contribute. We've got ideas: For Want of an Arrow...Pharoh's Chariots...Patton's Tanks 1919 .

Trust in Will and praise Kek, for we are among the best there is at what we do.