We awake tired and sore after pulling kayaks in and out of the water. We still refuse to so much as get in the boat. The Stroocklettes have been informed thusly and are adjusting themselves to the new order. Middle and Youngest Daughter have camp next week, so they will be fine. Looks like some daddy/daughter time with the teenager is in the offing.
Reader(s), it's happening! Please, this blog implores you, if you click one link this morning, click this one. It's an expose from something called Nightingale Russia, and it's all about us. We read it like eight times yesterday. [Ego?-Ed] Absolutely. When we found the piece we were just so....happy. We smiled, we laughed like an idiot. Eight times. We're going to read it again after we're finished here. We've been waiting for this. Nightingale Russia quotes extensively from this blog, and it's obvious that they just don't get the joke. Which is hilarious. We'll deal with these people next week.
In other news, The National Interest has pirated another one of our magazine articles. We admit it's flattering. It's nice to see people recognize that we are among the best there is at what we do. At the bare minimum we're going to start bragging that our work appears in The National Interest. When we get home we're going to send them an invoice at $800 per. Not kidding.
We think we're going to start a Twitter account just to see how long we can go before it gets taken down, Fauci did Covid, that sort of thing. Because Fauci did Covid.
On to the things:
Being bogged down with children and boat issues we haven't done anything on The Great Nuclear War of 1975.
World War 1990: The Weser is coming along splendidly, though. We're at 32,000 words. The 8th Infantry Division section is partly done, which means it's partly not done. But we're good. We figured out how to start the British chapter and have done so. This entailed adding a British general scene at the beginning, watching as 4 Armoured Division pulls back from the Weser. We also introduce some BBC guys. Also, the Brits meet the Confederates. Two of the 211th ACR's squadrons will cross the Weser, one will remain on the west bank maintaining contact with the Limeys. This chapter is going to be a chess match between the Brit and Jerry general and we'll convey action via listening in to the command net, a trick we've used before and love doing. We'll punctuate with the BBC guys. The first part of the book takes up 30,000 words. We'll keep this chapter about 10,000. Maybe 12,000....15,000?
Last week we took note of Tucker Carlson's explosive interview with Ralph Peters and Max Boot. Here's the episode with Boot, which is the more important of the two:
Boot is an intellectual. He writes books. He has a fellowship and a fancy pants foreign policy think tank.
Watching this clip one gets the impression that this was the first time in decades Boot's been challenged. He didn't do very well, did he?
Over at the National Interest we have an interesting article on the episode. Basically, Carlson was once a hawk but not anymore.
See, speaking as a neocons myself, the problem is your always looking for the next enemy. I subscribed to William Kristol's The Weekly Standard from the first issue. All through the late 90's they were ginning up China as the enemy. Now you have to remember something. During the Reagan Administration the people running the state department were neocons, guys like Wolfowitz and Pearle and Abrrams and a host of others. With the Soviet Union gone these guys had nothing to do.
Whether or not the Iraq campaign was wrong or worth it no longer matters. Ten years ago now we were finally winning via the Surge. For our part we are far more interested in the mechanics and details of the Iraq campaign than the arguments for and against. We think the evens of 2006-2008 are fascinating. We will go on record again as supporting the liberation Iraq, still.
The point is we have learned. Syria is basically a smaller version of Iraq and when it comes to intervention we have no stomach for it. That said we don't think a few tomahawk strikes on the Syrian air force are a big deal.
But it seems Boot and company are eager to get into Syria. Worse, they think Russia is the great existential threat. Just like China in the late 90's, the neocons must now gin up Russia as the enemy. Look, Russia is not our friend. We are not best buddies. We're never really going to get on. We rivals, we're adversaries. That doesn't make Russia an existential threat. What the hell do we care if Putin is monkeying around with Ukraine? Besides, Putin is killing a lot of ISIS terrorists, isn't he?
Since the war began, Bull Feathers had remained open
24 hours a day. Located down the street from the Cannon House Office Building,
the owner felt it was his patriotic duty to remain open so congressional staff
had a place to unwind after Congresses marathon sessions. Besides, he was
making a small fortune.
The
time approached midnight as the Vice President's chief of staff sat down at a
table in the back corner, far away from the chattering young congressional
staffers. The chief watched in amusement. Young people dropped shot glasses into
beer classes and chugged. One young man did a Jell-O shot from between the breasts of a young woman, the pair shouted 'bipartisanship!'
and high fived. The chief wasn't surprised by the display. His
colleagues at the District's major universities, George Washington and Georgetown,
reported that students were skipping class, ignoring course work and generally
enjoying themselves. A certain fatalism had set in amongst the young, he had
noticed, a consequence, he supposed of being raised on tales of nuclear
Armageddon. He wondered what he would do if he were twenty years old.
The
chief finally saw the rest of his party. The under secretary of defense walked
past the gaggle of young drunks and sat down. The two shook hands.
'Bill,'
the undersecretary said, 'Thanks for meeting me here.'
'Not
at all, Paul,' Bill replied. He pointed to his drink, 'Want one?'
'Sure.'
Paul
flagged down a waitress and ordered a whisky.
Bill
nodded to the young people at the bar and said, 'You think they know something
we don't?'
Paul
smirked, 'I think they're acting like young people.'
Bill
shook his head. 'The whole city is paralyzed. Those who haven't left town stay
indoors. It took me ten minutes to get here from my house in Northern
Virginia.'
'I
think those kids,' Paul nodded to the bar again, 'are using this as an excuse.'
Bill
sipped his drink and shook his head. 'I think if you had seen movies like The Day After as a kid, you might be
fatalistic about the war.'
'Eh. I
saw On the Beach as a kid.' Paul
sipped his drink. 'Business?'
'Business,'
Bill agreed.
'Tell
me, what does your boss think about the war?'
'He
doesn't,' said Bill. 'The Vice President is grateful that the President has
found a role for him.'
'I
think inviting him to the NSA meetings is the right thing,' Paul said. 'I know
the president insisted, in case something happens to him, he wants Quayle up to
speed.'
Bill
nodded.
'Let
me ask you, what does the vice president think should happen next?'
Bill
laughed. 'So that's what this is about.'
Paul
nodded.
'The
Vice President is not in the policy loop and he hasn't expressed one way or the
other what he thinks should happen next.'
'Do
you know what transpired at meeting at St. John last week?'
'No.'
'Thatcher
wants to invade Eastern Europe.'
'Jesus.'
'So
does Kohl.'
'They're
serious?' Bill asked.
Paul
nodded.
'What
does the president think?'
'He's
cautious as you know.'
'Is
that bad?'
'I
didn't say it was bad. Just that he is cautious.'
'What
do you think?'
'Think
about this, Bill, and Thatcher made this point at St. John. What if the war
stops, the Soviets recoup, and we have to do this all over again?'
'Mmmmm,'
Bill said in thought.
'What
if it's like 1918 and the Soviet Army feels it's been stabbed in the back?'
'I
see where you're headed.'
'Now
think about this, and I think you'll agree. What if we win the war decisively?
What if we took away the Soviet's ability to wage war on the west?'
