Good And Evil

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

This week our church bulletin had an added feature, and I’m going to bet our pastor, a working class boy, got it pushed on him and he thought “Oh, why not” and didn’t look too closely at it.

Because the church hasn’t given a hint of “praying for cease fire” or anything of the kind. if they had, I’d have left so fast it left a hole in the air. But this amid fairly innocuous questions and answers had a question about what was licit to achieve a good end. And amid a bunch of self-obvious examples, there was a stern condemnation of … wait for it… carpet bombing German cities in WWII, because killing people was wrong, no matter how good the end.

I’m fairly sure this is crazy cakes in most Christian theology, except possibly whatever the Quakers used to do the job. I’m also fairly sure they pulled this from the left hand of the underwear gnomes’ underpants in order to make a point about Israel and Gaza.

The point is that there are age-old answers to this. And while it’s true that it’s no part of Christianity that “The end justifies the means” it’s also true that there is an entire doctrine of just war.

And I’m fairly sure that defending yourself against a relentless enemy who won’t stop is a just war. Yes, there are things about doing the minimal damage to achieve your end. Looks sternly at Gaza: If more than the necessary damage had been done, Hamass would have surrendered by now. But it hasn’t.

Or Germany you know? While yes, a lot of people died in carpet bombing, no more than necessary died to stop the regime from killing a lot more. Because, you know, if Germany hadn’t been stopped, they wouldn’t have stopped. The fact that as they were aware they were losing, they just sped up the “final solution” tells you they would have tried to exterminate Jews from the world, as well as anyone who didn’t measure up to their semi-mythological standards.

The truth, actually is that national socialist — LIKE ALL SOCIALISM — is ultimately incapable of feeding even its own country. And in their extreme form, as fascism, the same as international socialism in its extreme form as communism, it becomes a ravening beast, just to keep its core supporters happy. So first, it has to devour more and countries by conquest. and then it has to start devouring people inside its own territory and expropriating them. Which is part of what Germany did, yes. And the USSR too, just not as openly.

And if it hadn’t been stopped, Germany would have killed a lot more people.

And on the same, point, yeah, we didn’t bomb “Innocent civilians” to stop the USSR (arguable about Vietnam, very arguable, but we certainly didn’t take the war to the USSR) and you know, there’s 100 million dead of communism, and the death toll hasn’t stopped yet.

It’s like the old argument over whether bombing Japan was good or evil. It saved lives. Was it “the end justifies the means”? No, because there is no optional evil performed for utopic, optional good. It is a distasteful, painful undertaking of a terrible duty to stop evil.

Yes, it would be better if good people could somehow wave a magical wand or say an incantation and conquer evil without having to shed blood. But until G-d himself chooses to put both thumbs and a full fist on the scales, we will have to do what we will have to do.

The carpet bombing of Germany was no more evil than a surgeon cutting into a person to remove the cancer is evil.

And what Israel is doing in Gaza is no more evil than a man shooting at the people trying to kill him, to make them stop.

If Hamass wants a cease-fire or peace? All they have to do is surrender utterly and give up the leaders responsible for the October 7 massacre.

Because if that doesn’t happen, what Israel will be doing is inviting a lot more massacres of its people. This needs to be finished now, or next time there won’t be enough carpet bombing to make it stop.

Allowing evil to rampage the world is not good. And pacifist — true pacifist — cults are either small, limited, and set in very safe areas, or are extinct.

The right to self-defense is G-d given and the most basic and fundamental part of civilized society, without which civilization cannot exist and without which nothing is left but savagery and fighting, everyone’s hand against everyone else’s.

I’m not impressed by those “theologians” who I think would do best to crack the source book now and then. And note the source book is not the New York Times editorial pages.

267 thoughts on “Good And Evil”

  1. “Because, you know, if Germany hadn’t been stopped, they wouldn’t have stopped. The fact that as they were aware they were losing, they just sped up the “final solution” ”

    Exactly. Sounds awfully familiar. And has been my argument all along vis a vis our current situation.

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    1. And why limit it to the groups they had already deemed inferior?

      If the war is lost, the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence. On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation. Besides, those who will remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have all been killed. Adolf Hitler

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  2. This is a version of the Trolley problem. Do one thing and one child dies. Do the other and five adults die. As you say, in war there are no good options, there are just less bad ones. Sometimes, after the fact, it turns out there was an even less bad option that the people fighting at the time were unaware of, or dismissed because they thought it wouldn’t work or….

    Germans, on the whole, supported the Nazis until probably late 1944. The Japanese supported their regime until August 1945. The Gazans appear to be still supporting Hamass (though I see reports that this is becoming less of a thing). The Japanese were the only one of the three that were not explicitly genocidal but that didn’t stop them raping and massacring Chinese and others.

    The Church of England (and probably other churches) go on about sins of omission as well as sins of commission :
    “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; ” as the confession says.
    Refusing to fight as hard as is necessary is, it seems to me, a sin of omission. Just as fighting harder than necessary is a sin of commission.

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    1. Curious thing about the trolley problem is, it only worked as a closed abstract problem. Once you pull it into the real world the utilitarianism falls apart.

      For example, if you switch the track when the trolley is halfway through, it falls over and misses everyone, which may or may not be a good thing depending on if the trolly is loaded with people.

      Or the crowds around it may be able to pull the people off the tracks, depending on which has more track. Or the trolley may be able to stop on one length but not the other. Or…

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      1. The thing that strikes me about the trolley problem, in the version that involves pushing someone onto the track, is that if you really believe that one death is better than five, full stop, you can achieve that by jumping onto the track yourself, without murdering an innocent person.

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          1. The way I’ve usually seen it set up is as a runaway trolley car going down the track, headed towards a large number of unsuspecting people who can’t see it coming. You’re at the switch, and if you switch it onto an alternate track, it will hit only a couple of people (who also can’t see it coming).

            Personally, the whole thing just puts my teeth on edge. It’s billed as a thought experiment in utilitarianism, but it always seemed more like a dishonest false dilemma to me.

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            1. That’s one version, a common one, and there the answer is obviously that you should switch to a different track, so that you limit the harm done. I don’t think you need utilitarianism for that.
              But there’s another version where you’re standing near the track, and a single fat person is also there. You can shove them onto the track, and their mass will slow the trolley down enough so it won’t kill the five people. Should you do it? This is intended to make the case for applying utilitarian reasoning to justify treating another person’s life as a disposible resource, by suggesting that it’s no different from the more usual account.

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                2. I’ve seen at least one short fiction based on that concept. (Superhero world, where a designated “villain” is rescuing all the traumatized sidekicks and putting them in therapy, then tracking down the bastard who put them in that unwinnable situation to begin with on purpose. Designated as “villain” simply because they saw through that world’s crap distinctions.)

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              2. Hm. Agree with William, then. If life is so cheap, the person involved should throw himself on the track.

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      3. The Trolley Problem both gives the chooser too much and too little power to be realistic; too much in that you have God-like knowledge of all results, too little in that there are only two options where the results are 100% known and sure, based on that choice.

        It’s like playing “count the fallacies”!

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        2. My usual comment on it is it’s an attempt to declare some people “expendable” so it can be used to excuse some real life decisions to dispose of others.

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      1. The Japanese weren’t genocidal the same way the Germans were, because they didn’t have the same philosophical view of all humans as being just as human and worthy of dignity. Nor even one of presumption of right to live in people, or torturing people is inherently bad, or….

        The results are the same, the motivation is different, so the solution to stop the results are different.

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  3. Good job,Sarah.They should try teaching the Bible and stop editorializing or writing “opinion pieces”.

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  4. If Hamas had done the minimal damage they wouldn’t be in this situation.

    With the public statements Hamas has made, a ceasefire would be racial suicide on the part of the Jews.

    If you have a madman stalking you and saying he’s going to kill your whole family, he has already tried, the police will do nothing and the neighbors agree with him so they won’t be the next target, it’s best to take his declarations seriously.

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  5. There’s some that just plain need killing. Full stop.

    War is awful. But not doing it when you need to is worse. Would there have been a 10/6 if Israel had gone to war before? Can’t know for sure, but the evidence leans heavily towards “no.”

    I men come to your home with the stated intent to kill you and your sons, rape the women, then kill them too- killing them first might be awful, but it is the right thing to do.

    It is a distasteful task that stains the soul. But a needful one nonetheless.

    Should Israel man up and push ’em into the sea, or slaughter the lot of them, I will shed no tears. They’ve gone and asked for it. The bloody little goblins have been a pox upon the land for longer than I’ve been alive. And not once have they recanted their diatribe of murderous arrogance and petty cruelty.

    All good people are better off without them. Should some recant, and pursue a life of humility? Welcome, but watch. Trust, but verify. Repentance is divine. But retribution for oath breaking.

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    1. And the WSJ reported this morning that a dozen members of the UN “relief,” personnel took part
      In 10/7 and 10% of the total personnel are “affiliated,” in some manner with Hamas. If the Israelis have hit the, “kill them all, God will know His own,” stage, they have ample reason.

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      2. UNWRA supplied WEAPONS, including rocket launchers, to Hamas, for use in the 10.7 attack. This is on top of the UNWRA curriculum in Gaza and the West Bank that declares Israel’s very existence to be illegitimate and demonizes Jews and celebrates the murder of Jews and those who commit the murders.

        This is all done with the blessing and support of the UN and the vast majority of UN member nations, which loathe Israel’s existence and Jews as Jews.

        The UN needs to be abolished. Its assets need to be seized. As a start, every single UN facility in Gaza and the West Bank needs to be dismantled, its assets seized, and UN personal there arrested and held as accomplices to mass murder and as aiding terrorism.

        In the US, since Americans were victims of the attack, state AGs (since we know the corrupt DOJ will support the UN) need to use state RICO laws to go after the UN and its people.

        Meanwhile Team ObamaBiden and raving Jew-haters like AOC are supporting UNWRA and effectively, if not openly, supporting Hamas:

        The current regime running DC is the most anti-American and traitorous in the history of the USA. They support enemies who openly proclaim their goal of destroying the USA.

        For all the faults of the Republicans, and there are many, it is the Democrats who openly finance and support those who seek the destruction of the USA while pursuing that goal with their domestic policies and effort to silence dissent. The Republicans remain the stupid party, but the Democrats, as a political party, are outright evil.

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    2. One can tell that the world would be better off without them by the fact that the other Moslem countries in the area don’t want them, either.

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  6. “Good people sleep safe in their beds because hard men are prepared to do violence on their behalf.” Maybe not the exact quote but close enough.

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  7. So concerning Christian views on war, there are two famous theologians (and saints in the Catholic faith) who gave the accepted basis for Just war (jus bellus). Augustine of Hippo first talks about the concept of a just war and posits that this does not necessarily violate

    For myself I think I align most closely with William T. Sherman who said in a letter to the mayor of Atlanta:

    “War is cruelty and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.”

    To rephrase in a slightly less refined manner, “Don’t start none and there won’t be none”. Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and Hamas (and other Iranian proxies) all violated that basic principle and paid dearly for that. It is a horrible balancing problem that we have given to our leaders. May heaven preserve us when they are too weak, stupid or cowardly to act in the way that limits these issues.

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  8. Hamass has had every opportunity, and continues to have it, of ending this war. They’ve had it for nearly 20 years when Israel pulled out of Gaza. Instead, they’ve continued to hate Jews more than they love their children. When I see “Palestinians” crying over their dead I feel no sympathy for them. Anything I felt for them other than revulsion ceased in the mid-90s. It’s been made clear that the “Palestinians” have no interest in a two-state solution, because they have no interest in peace. Multiple attempts have been made to give the muslim arabs their own country, but they don’t want anything that leaves a country for Jews in the middle east.

    What happened on October 7th just reinforces my view that there shouldn’t be any structure standing in the Gaza Strip. If aid agencies want to leave food on the beach, let them. But no metal, and no concrete, of any kind should be allowed through. If anything moves outside of a small open air camp, it gets destroyed. Gaza should be nothing but an Israeli bomb range. If any country wants to take the “Palestinians” in, let them. But since they won’t let Israel live in peace, they shouldn’t get to live in peace either.

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    2. My well of sympathy for the Gaza Palestinians ran dry more than a decade ago. And the 7 October attack just stirred the dry dust a little. I simply don’t care any more, about people who trained up their children in poisonous Jew-hate, who cheered on the most vicious murders, tortures and rape.
      For all of me, the Israelis can bounce the Gaza rubble like a trampoline. I do not care.
      The Gaza Palestinians had an enviable bit of coastal real estate, could have turned into a holiday beach resort, growing vegetables and flowers for a northern market, been an economic Singapore for the region … but no. They turned down every opportunity presented to them on a sliver platter, and consumed themselves with envy and hatred.
      I’m sure that there were winsome Japanese children, and house-proud German women among those bombed by the Allies during WWII, and perhaps Americans and British felt mildly regretful about dropping HE on them … but the existence of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan couldn’t be allowed to continue.
      Just so with Hamas.

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      1. Also, a reminder that 80% of the “Palestinian” “civilians” in both Gaza AND the West Bank supported the attack and continue to do so, along with supporting the eradication of Israel and the creation of a Jew-free Arab-Muslim state in its place.

        Anyone who expects Israel to make peace under such circumstances is actively supporting those who wish to accomplish the goal that Hamas and its ilk seek.

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        1. Similarly, I somewhat vaguely recall from years ago a poll of Muslims in… London, I think, that was probably supposed to support the “religion of peace” Narrative(tm), but instead made it clear that they were very much not inclined towards “live and let live”. If they weren’t wanting to actually behead people, they supported those who do, and a clear majority of them were just fine with jail for those who insulted Islam or Muhammad (piss be unto him).

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        1. Some idiots want to kiss the poor thing goodbye first. And yes, they -will- try to mouth-kiss a foaming-rabid animal, while cursing everyone opposed.

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    3. “If any country wants to take the “Palestinians” in, let them.”

      When speaking of the Palies, it is always instructive to include Egypt in the discussion. Egypt has a very big, very well patrolled wall along its border with Gaza. Much bigger, much taller and thicker than the -glorified cow fence- which separated Gaza from Israel.

      If the co-religionists of the Gaza Peoples are taking that much time, money and trouble to keep them out of Egypt, there might be a pretty good reason. People don’t usually spend that kind of money on a wall without need.

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  9. Second-guessing, using the corrective lenses of hindsight, is the privilege of people who didn’t have to make the decisions when the fight was on. Not only can you use the (assumed) greater clarity of your time to judge decisions made through a haze of secrecy, concealment, and the enemies’ lies, but you can also neglect to imagine how the enemy might change its methods to thwart your idealized plan–as was done to those leaders who thought they had the perfect plan at the time.

    There is also the moral thrill of attributing to malice that which could adequately be explained by stupidity, or at least insufficiently penetrating brilliance. This thrill is multiplied when the targets of your scorn are dead and can no longer defend themselves.

    I could go on. I won’t go on.

    Republica restituendae

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  10. Well said. If we had not fried and radiated 150,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki–and just as many in Tokyo in one night but without the radiation, using incendiaries instead–I wouldn’t be here because my father would’ve probably died invading Japan in 1945-46. They’d already told him they would be yanking him out of his motor pool supervisory mechanic job on Leyte, shoving an M1 at him, and sending him to Kyushu or Honshu. And we now know just what was waiting for him there…the Gyokusai of the One Hundred Million, the plans to have the entire population of Japan resist the invasion down to bamboo spears and their own fists. It would have been much worse than our bombings, all around.

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    1. Yes to that. Dad was in the 8th Air Force, too late to join the festivities in Europe, but was being trained for chemical warfare. A bad parachute landing practice fall (the DI said it was “perfect”, the broken collar bone insisted otherwise) put Dad in the hospital, and after the usual mishaps and recovery, he was retasked to be a draftsman, what he did before the Army Air Force got him.

      He went to Okinawa in a headquarters company. Not sure how much bombing they were doing there, but most of his work was general drafting, and possibly working on maps. However, if Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not bombed, I strongly suspect Dad would have been reverted to his chem warfare role, with a good chance that one of my brothers and I would never have been born. So, thank you, Dr. Oppenheimer and General Groves.

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      1. Dad was a gunner on a bomber, my father-in-law a Japanese POW. If not for the nukes, I most likely wouldn’t exist, nor my husband, our children, our siblings, nieces, nephews, grand nieces and nephews . . .

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    2. It is not just attacking Americans who would not be here in that timeline. Estimates for KIA for Operation Downfall (overall Japanese invasion) run 250000 to 400000+ for the US. In addition, there were over 300000 POWs and internees held on the mainland who would likely have been executed. And of course, the Japanese losses would have been immense. Estimates were 10X US KIA based on Okinawa and other similar last stands. The US also planned to use up to 7 additional Fat Man class weapons as part of their tactical strategy. These would have caused more Japanese casualties as well as US casualties as the intent was to move troops into the bombed regions within 48 hours given the radioactivity issues were poorly understood. Large-scale chemical warfare (both against humans and crops) was also considered although Truman rejected that. The Tokyo attacks of March 9-10 and the use of the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were far preferable as horrible as they were.

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      1. Japan was already in a state of famine, which anybody knows who watches any kind of historical anime. Grave of the Fireflies, if you want to be depressed about what Japan did to Japan.

        And both Godzilla Minus One and The Boy and the Heron reference the starvation, albeit more obliquely in the latter than the former.

        Look, America had “victory gardens” as supplements. In the UK, they were really important and vital, and some older kids were released from school to do national service. But in Japan, they tried to turn almost all fairly young schoolkids and their teachers into agricultural workers, as “volunteers,” for most of the schoolday.

        The Boy and the Heron glances at some of this stuff, but in combination with other material from other sources, it is devastating. Likewise the old guys getting drafted.

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        1. Yes, people who complain about the atomic bombs ignore the famine, which was caused by the successful submarine campaign by the USN. The US did to Japan what Germany had tried and failed to do to the British Isles. And Japan at the time was unable to feed herself.

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            1. Massive numbers of civilians dying in China and almost everywhere Japan occupied; about 12 million all told.

              We chose the lesser of three evils. I, for one, am proud to be a descendant of those stalwart men who made that decision.

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            2. One great exchange I saw regard the (im)morallity of the atomic bomb had one person saying that the USA should be on War Crimes trial for them. Another replied that such could not fairly take place in either Japan nor the U.S.A., so “Let’s hold them in Nanking.”

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          2. On an unrelated note, I’m seeing the new administration tactic regarding the illegals swamping the border. Craft an unacceptable “bipartisan compromise” that would grant amnesty and increase the number of people legally allowed through the border. Then when the conservatives reject it, blame the bill’s failure – and the ability to control the border – on Trump directing Republicans to keep the border issue alive as a campaign talking point.

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            2. The Democrats could end the border crisis today just by enforcing the laws. They don’t need Congress to do anything. The Democrats caused the border crisis 3 years ago, and have allowed it to fester ever since.

              Even if they did get their ‘bipartisan compromise bill’ passed, they still wouldn’t do a damned thing to relieve the border situation. This is what they want.
              ———————————
              ‘Progressives’ believe everybody else is even stupider than they are. This explains a lot.

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            3. The bill is even worse than that,. It deliberately prevents future administrations from trying to control the border. It is essentially a bill that is designed to destroy the USA as an independent nation-state. Not surprised that the RINOs are on board with it.

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          3. The NKVD, and later the KGB, put massive effort into various “ban the Bomb” movements in the US and Britain from the late 1940s to the early 1970s or so. They were also financing most of the “unlilateral peace” movements, student riots, various terrorist groups, and anything else that looked like it might cause trouble.

            All of the “no nukes” and “poor Japan” BS I’ve seen has been straight off the old Soviet talking points.

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        2. It boggles my mind that they released Grave of the Fireflies and My Neighbor Totoro as a double feature.

          Sure, they’re both Studio Ghibli films. Beyond that, there’s a hell of a lot of stylistic whiplash.

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          1. Ouchie!!! Totoro has (spoiler warning on 20+ year old movie) sections with the ill mother and the hunt for Mei that had my preteen daughters (admittedly known softies) cringing and on the verge of tears. But given what I know of Grave of the Fireflies it makes Bambi and Dumbo (let alone the mild Totoro) look like gentle pictures, not the movies that would send kids screaming from the theater (I will note I stayed cuffled up hard to my Mom in Bambi as a 5 year old and had fire nightmares for years after :-) ).

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        3. In one text on the history of the atomic bomb (which one is long forgotten, alas) there was the claim that there were plans to drop anthrax cakes (and who knows what else…) on grazing areas if the war lasted into 1946. That would have further pushed things in Japan into famine.

          That claim that “Japanese will only be spoken in Hell” came close.

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    3. An invasion of Japan would have fulfilled Haley’s prediction when he returned to Pearl Harbor on the Enterprise after the surprise attack. “When this war is over, Japanese will only be spoken in H*ll.”

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    4. My cynical and suspicious mind notes that “We should not have A-bombed Hiroshima or Nagasaki! (But we totally should have A-bombed Berlin, if the first bombs had been ready in time.)” just happens to align with What Would Have Benefited The Soviets.

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    5. Mt father in law was part of the ground crew for Bock’s Car. He said he never had to buy his own drinks after that, at least until he mustered out of the Army.

      It might not have been officially announced at the time, but everyone knew what the price of invading Japan would be.

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  11. This may end up a double post I posted and it disappeared. WPDE!!!
    So Christian philosophy has some very early wrestling with War and its relationship to the ban on killing/murder in the 10 Commandments. Two towering intellects of the Christian faith tackled the issue. The first was Augustine of Hippo who posited that there were just causes for war and that war did not violate that commandment. The second Thomas Aquinas codified just war with 3 basic requirements that had to be met.
    I am not a theol0ogian (nor do I play one on TV). My predilections run closer to those expressed by William T. Sherman in a letter to the Mayor of Atlanta:

    “War is cruelty and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.”

    In a less refined manner, “Don’t start None and there won’t be None”. The Imperial Japanese, Nazi Germany, and Hamas(and other Iranian catspaws) ignored this at their own peril. These hard decisions we delegate to our leaders, in the hope that they will not be too stupid, lazy or cowardly to act when they must.

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    2. And it should be remembered that at the end of the war, after Sherman’s March to the Sea, Sherman’s peace terms were so lenient toward his Confederate opposite that Grant (who by Lee’s own admission offered very lenient terms to Lee’s men) felt the need to nix the surrender terms and force Sherman to negotiate more strict terms.

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    3. My takeaway from Sherman is that attempts to refine war actually make lives worse. Wars go on and on, as the diplomats get involved, and nothing is ever resolved. Sherman’s philosophy seems to have been to fight hard and get it over with as soon as possible with a clear victor.

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      1. Note the outcomes of our “more refined” wars since 1945, and most especially since 1995.

        Achieve Victory, total and outright. Then with that done, the Peace Corps hippies can help rebuild.

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        1. Look, I’m an unreconstructed Southerner and proud of it. I will brook no insult of the character of men like Lee and Jackson. But I understand why Bill “The Arsonist” Sherman did what he did. Sherman (and Grant, and Sheridan in the Shenendoah Valley in 1864) understood the concept of total war and what it would take to break down stubborn resistance. It is not “honorable” in the classic war sense, but it was what the Union needed as war changed in the 19th century toward the total industrial clash of populations that it became in the 20th. They were the men that the North needed to end the war quickly, and they did.

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          1. It is very difficult to discuss the realities of “Law and Customs of War” of the mid 19th centrury, when most folks here and now know of the Law of War only what they heard watching Hogan’s Heroes endlessly invoking mostly-unspecified (or wrong) “Geneva Conventions”. Or maybe the brief training reeived for current era military service.

            Almost none of that existed in the mid nineteenth century. Wars and their conduct were very, very different. If you think things got nasty here in the States, dig into the -typical- conduct from the Napoleonic wars forward through the Franco-Prussian War. And those routine barbarities were -vastly- better than the routine depredations of the 30 Years War of the prior century.

            Had Sherman hanged, out of hand, sans even drumhead court martial, every Confederate officer captured or wounded, it would have been entirely within the Law and Customs of War then in effect. It was a rebellion. You can call it “secession”, but it was “no, we wont obey you and we are overthorwing your government, at least around these parts.” The controlling power traditionally invokes “Treason” as a dometic matter and hangs the troublemakers, or does much, much worse. Ask William Wallace. Does not matter one whit that one calls the overthrowing force “Army of Fenwick”. You are -not- a new sovereign state until you -win-. -That- is a -very- old and established Custom of War.

            We date our Independence to 4 July 1776. But in practical terms, it wasn’t really effective until 3 September 1783 and the Treaty of Paris. One might argue the real date of true US Independence was 24 December 1814 and the Treaty of Ghent, when we made it stick for good. Folks of the 7th US Infantry Regiment (Cottonbalers!) might say 8 January 1815, but that would be mean spirited. (Singing, “In 1814 we took a little trip….”)

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        1. The Versailles Treaty didn’t start with the precondition of a clear victory; because we didn’t actually invade Germany, the whole “stabbed in the back” myth could take root in the German military.

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          1. Yup. Germany had largely recovered from the effects of Versailles by the ’30s. The inflation had been dealt with, and the economy had recovered. But the same German military officers that had encouraged the 1918 civilian government to surrender had meanwhile turned around and started telling everyone that they (the military officers) had done no such thing, and the surrender was all the fault of a civilian government that had abandoned the fight while the military could still have defended Germany.

            And so many Germans looked at the treaty (which still had some non-fiscal conditions in place, though as it turned out the Allies by and large no longer seriously considered enforcing them), considered the false rumors being spread about the civilian government prematurely surrendering, and grew resentful over the whole affair. This gave people like the Nazis something to work with.

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          2. From “This Is The Army” film of WWII:

            This time, we will not say “Curtain”
            Till we ring it down in their own home town.

            The tune was “Dressed Up To Win”… Irving Berlin had titled it “Dressed Up To Kill” but this was thought excessive. Berlin, being Jewish, rightly thought otherwise.

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      3. Yes. Sherman saw even the Confederates as his fellow Americans. His goal was to win the war as swiftly as possible to bring the slaughter on both sides to an end. The March to the Sea was destructive. But he believed that in the long run, it saved lives.

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      4. Indeed he is trying to avoid a “forever war”. Sherman views it like lancing a boil or amputating a limb, do it and make darn sure you don’t have to come back and do it again. This latter we forgot in the latter half of the 20th century and early 21st century. For example in the first Iraq War Bush the Elder became concerned over the slaughter of the Iraqi units and reined in the land war letting many of the praetorian style Republican Guard units intact. This allowed Hussein to keep control of his government instead of Iraq splintering into 2-3 subsections. This meant we had to come back to deal with the issue 10 years later (although not helped by intervening Clinton administration being to squeamish to enforce the cease fire).

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    4. Anything less than ‘UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER’ translates as ‘Time to reload’. Hamas should be face one decision and one decision alone: DO they prefer to DIE or to SURRENDER UNCONDITIONALLY. There is NO other choice.

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  12. I got my early schooling south of the Mason-Dixon line, and middle and high schooling in the NorthEast. I learned about the War of Northern Aggression before the Civil War. There are two sides (at a minimum) in every war, and only the victor gets to write the history that most people read. And gets to “Fact Check” the losers. About WWII – should be believe Patton or Eisenhower? At any rate, war is a necessary but despicable aspect of human behavior, and just as at least the saner members of our species aren’t into glorifying our excretory functions, neither can we deny their necessary utility. I’m not a supporter of Palestinian terror, especially the recent attacks that stimulated the current response by Israel, but sadly these two sides have been set violently against each other by outside forces seeking their own selfish goals.

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      2. The Reader had something of the same experience. His schooling, while officially just south of the Mason Dixon Line, got progressively more ‘Northern’ as he progressed in school. At the same time, one of his grandmothers, whose maiden family name is well known in the Commonwealth of VA even today, was hard core Southern (and racist). A serious amount of mixed messages in the Reader’s upbringing. It was interesting that she married someone who was essentially an early 20th century carpetbagger from NJ. The Reader does not know the story behind it.

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    3. . There are two sides (at a minimum) in every war, and only the victor gets to write the history that most people read. And gets to “Fact Check” the losers.

      That’s only true if the victory is absolute.

      That is, if the losers have absolutely no descendants, physical or for their writings.

      As far as I can tell, the conflation of the “wipe them out and salt the land” type victory, with the “until open combat ends” type victory, came out of folks who had reason to want to dismiss evidence but didn’t actually HAVE a good reason to do so.

      You can look at this in things like investigations into Carthage and the Aztecs, where the reflexive dismissal of the “winners” had folks insisting for decades that They Weren’t That Bad.
      On deeper investigation… physical evidence says yes, Carthage burned babies on the regular, and the Aztecs did mass slaughter.

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      1. As a bit of a tangent, it’s interesting to read history of any time and take note of the adjectives. You can usually tell a writer’s view of things by the adjectives they choose.

        The ones that are right out in your face are not nearly so dangerous as the subtle ones, though…

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    4. One side Israel wants peace and has made numerous offers over the years, giving up land that historically has been part of Israel going back to the first millennium BC. The descendants of historic Israel have had a continuous presence since then, the only time they were not in East Jerusalem and the West Bank area was one Jordan after the 1948 war ethnically cleansed those areas of Jews and worked to systematically erase anything built by Jews, to the point of using gravestones and tombs of Jews as material for building.

      The other side are the descendants of conquerors out of Arabia from the 700s AD who even before they left the Arabian peninsula engaged in genocidal massacres of Jews and whose religious writings call for the extermination of Jews. They have rejected every single peace offer and have openly declared that they will not accept the existence of Israel, regardless of borders, and that they want to replace it with a Judenfrei Arab state., Lest you think that this started in 1948, those same “Palestinian” Arabs actively worked with the Nazis in pursuit of the “final solution”, including the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem touring Auschwitz with Himmler as it was being built. Since then, they have tried multiple wars to destroy Israel and “push the Jews into the sea”, which is where the “from the river to the sea” chant comes from, and each time they lose, they complaint that Israel has done them wrong and has “occupied” Palestinian land. I won’t even mention the pogroms that occurred well before the establishment of modern Israel.

      Until they are willing to accept the presence of Jews and Jews having a state in the place that they have lived for over 3000 years, the proper response to them is to for them to go f–k themselves.

      There is only one side to blame, and its not Israel.

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      1. Recently, there was a “spot this message” AI image of a stack of stones. The message in the cracks? “The stones will cry out.”

        A lot of people shared it, not having any idea of where it came from. “The stones will cry out: ‘There is a Jew behind me! Come and kill him!'”

        I don’t think the spreading of that image at this time was accidental. And I made sure to mention that the phrase had a problematic meaning, leaving the posters to seek it out for themselves.

        Liked by 1 person

      1. There were violent events from both sides, and powerful economic, political and judicial events that preceded that attack often ignored in histories. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

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  13. Hamas, Islam generally, and the hard totalitarian Left are all attackers of civilization, and acting on the same basic principles.
    When they are weak, they demand protection because that is the standard of our civilization. When they are strong, they demand our submission, because that is their standard.
    Part of the problem is that all belief systems, civilizations, and political philosophies are NOT equal, certainly not in regards to the freedoms and duties of their members. This is especially true for nations where competing standards and civilizations are present.
    One exposition of civilizational standards I refer to as an example is Robert Peels’ Principles of Policing, for the City of Londons’ first police force.
    This was for a coherent civilization which at the time had generally the same standards.
    These principles codified the duties of a general member of civilization to protect the civilization from attack, and set limits on the conduct of those people employed to take such action in support of the public duty of a citizen, as a profession.
    When, as now, civilizations clash, or are invaded by hostile philosophies, they must be strongly opposed, as they will otherwise use the respect we give to other members of our civilization to destroy us, as they do not hold to our standards.
    There is a reason that Guilianis’ “broken window policing” worked in New York. It enforced our civilizational standards.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I am struggling with this at the moment. Last night a friend called, accusing her husband of abuse and declaring her intention to leave him.

      She also called another friend, who has been a victim herself. I never have been.

      After the police got there, she packed up and left under their guard.

      The other friend was incensed that he wasn’t arrested. I understand why. With no actionable evidence of abuse they did precisely what they were supposed to do. They got her out of actual, physical danger.

      I also understand that my other friend is reacting from the position of the abused. She would be just as incensed if he was arrested, then released for lack of evidence.

      I can’t address it with either of them. Law based only on the accusation of wrongdoing is not legitimate.

      On the other hand, the perception that the law protects only the guilty and/or powerful is extremely dangerous.

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      1. And the folks who think the law only protects the guilty find themselves with a whole new perspective once they’re under the microscope.

        There’s a guy in my local jail (not my client) who’s a licensed chiropractor. He came out to the midwest because his dad was dying. The day of the funeral, his step-mom kicked him out, not even letting him pack his stuff. After a year of him living in his car so he can make enough money to get back to the West Coast, she has another relative give him a box of his stuff and a few heirlooms from his dad. He has the box in his trunk, and stupidly lets the police search his vehicle at a traffic stop. Stepmom had sent along a couple of dead dad’s guns, and since this guy committed a burglary forty years ago, he’s now in jail facing up to 21 years in prison for three counts of felon in possession of a firearm. (He admitted all this in open court; I’m not violating any confidences.)

        Most people have no clue how close they are to getting caught in our Kafka-esque legal system, a system that with every encounter makes it more and more difficult to ever extricate oneself from it. It doesn’t matter that this guy has been on the straight and narrow almost as long as I’ve been alive; a cop hunting for something wrong will always find it.

        Nota bene: the cops don’t want to search your car for your benefit. They aren’t reading you your Miranda rights for your benefit. Be polite about it, but insist on your right to be represented by an attorney and to not be searched without a warrant. Cooperation won’t get you out of trouble; it is just pulling down your panties for them to [fornicate] you.

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        2. I used to respect the police. I suspect that many are decent people doing the best they can. Still, I treat every encounter as a dialogue with a trained rattlesnake.

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      2. I don’t think your friend who was mad they didn’t arrest him understands how dangerous their mere presence at that time was. We had a new police officer killed a few years back when doing that “simple” job of providing escort for a woman leaving her abuser.

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        1. I think she has been very sheltered. Considering her life to this point that was a shock to me, but nevertheless…

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        2. Domestic disputes are an opportunity for the officer to get effed by both parties.

          The beater gets cuffed, and the beat-ee jumps the cops. “Leave them alone!” Then perhaps the lawyers and press add to the schlonging.

          Ask any experienced uniformed patrol officer, they will tell you “stay out of domestics” and “-Never- -ever-, get between the two in a domestic”. Straight, gay, roomies, pros, military, weirdoes, doesn’t matter.

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  14. Our pastor’s whole sermon yesterday was a painful meditation on, “How do you treat your enemies?” triggered off by the Gaza war. I like him. What gets me is he’s retired Navy and he still struggles with, “yes, 1,200 people dead is horrible, but I don’t see how 25,000 dead helps any.” Because of course his news sources (which almost certainly quote the Gazan Ministry of Health, i.e., Hamas figures) are 100% accurate and truthful. For retired military he seems to have been remarkably sheltered. OTOH, he was aboard ship, where you don’t necessarily see the results of your gunnery.
    I can understand pacifists. The defining case I remember was a member of one such sect being chased by an official, and the official fell through the ice. The pacifist turned back and rescued him even though it meant his capture. The man he saved tried to get him to run and leave him, but the pacifist refused, was captured and executed.
    I can admire that when it’s one man or woman’s decision. It may be very Christlike to go quietly to your death. But are you (or they) right to condemn your children, your grandchildren, your neighbors to the same fate, so that your kwn heads remain clean?
    I don’t see folks wrestling with that question.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. If there were 25,000 dead in Gaza, where would they be burying them? And why wouldn’t all resistance have collapsed, due to the high percentage of dead?

      People just don’t pay attention to these statistics. They just moan about them without thinking of how that would have to work.

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        1. It’s really amazing. On Oct 7, “we are all Hamas.” When justice comes for them, they’re all innocent women and children.

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          1. Sort of like every single inner-city street thug who ends up murdering an innocent person is “turning his life around,” “loves his grandmother,” “aspiring (rapper/musician/artist),” “good boy,” etc. Never mind all the felony arrests and convictions beforehand.

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            1. As I point out on those, if someone is “turning their life around” then the first step is to stop committing violent felonies. That’s not something to put off until later.

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            1. NO. No mercy for the poets. Probably all of the ones on 10-7 considered themselves poets.
              “My horse is faster than moonlight
              I like raping women and killing Jews.”
              Kill all the poets. Even a few of them are real poets, it’s no great loss.

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              1. For some reason I am reminded of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, in which the only survivors are the poet and the goat. Even the King of France dies.

                But that was a different kind of poet, to be sure.

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      3. Also keep in mind that all the totals from Gaza come from Hamas controlled agencies, and that Hamas includes active armed fighters among the “civilian” death toll. The reality is that the civilian casualty to armed combatant ration in Gaza is 1.5 to 1, a historic low and well below the 9 to 1 typical of US military action, which itself is lower than most other nations totals.

        Lying about what is going on is part and parcel of the game plan that Hamas and its supporters are pursuing, as they seek to deligitimize Israel’s existence in their quest to, as the Mullahs of Iran proclaim, “wipe Israel off the map”.

        None of the people complaining about the death toll in Gaza said anything about the hundreds of thousands killed in Syria, or the MILLIONS of Muslims being held in concentration camps by the CCP. Why, because it wasn’t due to Jews defending themselves from a genocidal enemy whose goal is the global mass murder of Jews.

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    2. Because of course his news sources (which almost certainly quote the Gazan Ministry of Health, i.e., Hamas figures) are 100% accurate and truthful.

      I don’t necessarily believe the 25,000 figure either, but it seems to me that focusing on the accuracy of the number is missing the point. The question isn’t, “How many people can Israel kill in revenge”; it’s, “What is Israel justified in doing to keep this from happening again?” In my mind, it’s pretty much whatever they have to short of a literal deal with Satan. If Israel could destroy Hamas without killing a single innocent, then yes, killing even one would be too many. But if they have to destroy everything in Gaza in order to get the job done (as Hamas did their best to insure that they would), then, sorry Gazans, guess it sucks to be you, but you should have thought of that before voting for the party who’s slogan was “Death to the Jews!”

      Liked by 1 person

      1. “If Israel could destroy Hamas without killing a single innocent…”

        Oh, yeah. How many are there right now pretending this is a thing? As many as are pretending that the Gaza Health Ministry is telling the truth. And as many as constantly pretend you can teach men not to rape.

        I’ve seen them out there decrying the actions taken against pirates in the Persian Gulf.

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        1. Piracy is an international crime, as well as a crime under US law, and is still punishable by death. The fact that Team ObamaBiden has for the most part given the pirates a pass and taken token action against them, rather than going after them and wiping them out, says everything you need to know about the feckless cabal here.

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          1. Sink the pirates. Find where they came from sink EVERYTHING there. And then make sure it’s a LONG TIME before anything thast needs sinking can launch from there. If it has to be revisited, hit inland until they get the point. If something ceases to exist.. they were dun WARNED. No sympathy for their SUICIDE.

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      2. Agreed. BTW, my beloved says our pastor’s is a veteran, not retired military.
        I suspect his wife, while also being somewhat liberal, is more realistic.

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    4. I love in the part of Shaky Town haunted by Richard Ramirez, and one of my friends’ grandparents were killed by him. At that time I thought that if he ever invaded my home I would fight it out mano a mano and accept the results, whatever they may have been. When I married I bought a gun.

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    5. CS Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity — which he composed during WWII while England was being bombed — that “war is a dreadful thing, and I can respect an honest pacifist, though I think he is quite mistaken. What I cannot understand is the sort of semipacifism you have nowadays that believes that while you have to fight, you should do it with a long face and as if you were ashamed of it.” He also pointed out that the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” in the original Hebrew was “Thou shalt not murder” and that “all killing is not murder any more than all sexual intercourse is adultery.”

      Still, there is another question that kind of haunts me when we begin discussing how the atom bombs on Japan and the carpet bombing of Germany were justified because those regimes were so evil and the people supported them. (You’re going to have to forgive me for getting all woo woo here.) Mother Teresa once said that “the fruit of abortion is nuclear war” and the visionaries of Fatima were told that “war is a punishment for sin”. Well, what if God or some other country decides it’s time America got what it deserves for the evils being perpetrated by our current regime, like 60+ million abortions, sexually mutilating children, etc. The same logic would apply to us — and we, therefore, would have to accept it as justfied for OUR homes to be bombed to smithereens and OUR loved ones roasted alive or crushed to death, even if we never endorsed or participated in those evils, because we’re guilty of them simply by the fact of being Americans.

      I apologize if this comes off sounding like some kind of lefty invoking moral equivalency between Hamas and the “genocidal” Israelis or some kind of super wokester arguing that American slavery was just as bad as the Holocaust — that’s NOT what I’m saying — in fact I’m not sure what I’m trying to say at all, just voicing a thought that nags at me a lot.

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  15. While the early Christians were generally peaceful, and while they generally chose not to resist martyrdom, they were not pacifists, for the most part. Even the more “pacifist” types were basically resisting military service on the grounds that they had been called to be monks and clergy and should be allowed to leave after doing their service, not on the grounds that all killing was bad; or that they should not be forced to sacrifice to the Emperor’s Genius, or the standard of the legion, or Roma Mater, or to other gods and goddesses.

    Some of the earliest Christians were Roman legionaries, cavalry, and auxiliaries. We know that from archaeological evidence, as well as from the source texts and from chronicles. They went by St. John the Baptist’s advice to soldiers. They prayed for the success of the imperial forces, and there were various military miracles (which at the time, people argued over whether they were pagan or Christian miracles, and which now get disputed as legend vs. factual event).

    Heck, one of St. Jerome’s friendly acquaintances, for whom he wrote a condolence letter to his uncle (it’s Letter 60) was St. Nepotianus, who served as a Roman officer (in more Christian-friendly times), got out after serving all his time, and then rose through the grades of clergy to become a presbyter (and was probably in line to become the next bishop of Altinum). He was not above cleaning his church himself, as well as adding painted decorations of flowers and greenery. He also turned his hand to scholarship, and as Jerome put it, “turned his breast into a library of Christ,” in order to be able to support his thoughts with quotes from memory from Scripture and the Fathers. In general, he neglected “no duty, small or great.”

    And this sort of military virtue in members of the clergy has generally been regarded as a good thing.

    Also, “the Lord is a warrior,” and Jesus is supposed to lead His hosts fairly violently on the Last Day.

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    1. It would be impossible for St. Michael the Archangel to be “Captain of the Host” (host being used in the military sense of the word in this context) if there was no “Host”.

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  16. The problem is that very few contemporary theologians (or what passes for them these days) have any experience of warfare. My husband, the former combat arms officer, is the exception. Listening to him instruct his seminary professors about just war theory and how war works was… enlightening. He actually got them to change the curriculum. :)

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  17. The more bits and pieces I find out about the Korean and Vietnam wars, the more I can’t help but think that the State and War Departments learned nothing and forgot nothing from WWII.

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  19. The International Court of Justice instructed the Alled armies yesterday to limit casualties and increase humanitarian aid to Nazi Germany, a highly anticipated ruling that stopped short of ordering a complete cease-fire.

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  20. So, serious hypothetical question about a parallel universe I’m writing about:

    If German and Japanese civilian casualties were justified to combat Evil, what is the acceptable body count among the “Vote Blue, No Matter Who” useful idiots and illegal non-citizens if the Constitutionalists throw off the Marxist yoke?

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    1. Null argument. I will not second guess the future. Those decisions will be made by those on the ground, if it comes to it.

      In your hypothetical parallel universe, the same applies. Only you can make that decision.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Zero is the correct answer.

        The Constitutionalists still have football and beer and will be arguing about Taylor Swift, while voting their way to liberty, again.

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    3. As these people have no limiting principle there is no limit. Logically the end result is the extermination of sentient life on the entire planet.

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    4. “what is the acceptable body count among the ‘Vote Blue, No Matter Who’ useful idiots and illegal non-citizens if the Constitutionalists throw off the Marxist yoke?”

      A more pointed question would be: what would be the acceptable body count among ALL residents of ‘vote blue no matter who’ blue states and cities if it came to that? As a resident of currently deep blue Illinois and an employee of the evil blue regime, I and everyone I know would have to be included in the acceptable body count, regardless of how we voted in the past or whether or not we agree with what is happening.

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  21. I distinctly recall a “discussion” my Old Testament professor had with two of my classmates during my undergrad days. To set the stage, this was at a Christian university that was hardcore into “Social Justice” about 5 or so years before the concept went mainstream, and was practicing “cancel culture” about a decade or so before it really took off.

    Anyways, that day’s lecture was on the Ten Commandments, and we got to “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” During the course of the discussion, our Prof pointed out that in the original Hebrew, the Commandment read “You Shall Not Commit Murder,” and that “killing” was not necessarily the same as “murder,” and that killing was permitted in some specific instances, namely war and self-defense. Cue two ultra-woke, ultra-pacifist classmates jumping all over him insisting that killing and violence were sinful regardless of the circumstances. No matter how much the professor tried to explain otherwise, even citing different sections of the Bible, those two know-it-alls refused to budge, even though their “argument” boiled down to “because we say so!”

    Side note: one of them publicly denounced the US’ killing of bin Laden during our senior year, and the two of them got married shortly after graduation. They deserve each other.

    Anyways, regarding the atomic bombing of Japan: the U.S. was anticipating so many casualties from the invasion of mainland Japan that we produced over 1.5 million Purple Heart medals by 1945. An estimated 60,000 of those were still in stock as of 2020. So yeah, I’d say nuking Japan was definitely the least bad decision.

    And regarding 10/7 and Palestine, I firmly believe that Israel should adopt a cease-fire… as in they should cease firing only when there is not a single solitary human or structure in Gaza or the West Bank left to fire at. Hamas, and the Palestinians in general, have made it clear that their singular goal is the complete destruction if Israel and the total eradication of the Jewish people. There can be no negotiation with people like that: the only option is to destroy them before they destroy you.

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    1. So how did these alleged Christian university students justify what the Israelites were supposed to do when they took over the Holy Land–kill all before them, devote them all and all their goods and items to the Lord? Yes, we’re in the New Testament era instead of the Old Testament covenant, but you can’t just ignore it or hand-wave it away as “oh, it was a different time and that was Mean God and now after Jesus we have Nice Gushy Cuddly Squishy God.” These were commands from God. And they don’t pass away.

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      1. IIRC, that’s exactly how they tried to justify it, along with “No, the text says ‘kill,’ so that means that all killing and all violence are sins!”

        Not the sharpest spoons in the drawer, those two. There are Reasons why we haven’t spoken since graduation.

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        1. I’d be willing to bet money those same two puddingheads condemned us for being meanie-heads who made Bin Laden kill people on 9/11. (I was in grad school, surrounded by people like that at the time.)

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        2. Apparently the social justice warriors did not know how to read either Greek or Aramaic, the original languages that it was printed in and whose words translate to murder, rather than kill. But when have social justice warriors ever cared about actual facts.

          The social justice warriors and their corruption of the education system before the nonsense spread into larger society is the same game plan used by Mao with the Cultural Revolution and the Red Guard.

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        3. Were they vegan? Because if not, they were being hypocrites on top of everything else.

          Oh, make that silican rather than vegan. Even plants have life and consciousness, so obviously offing them is also “killing.”

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            1. “Schlock Mercenary”

              nuff said.

              (warning! 20 years of “Comic Space Opera”rabbit hole. Be warned.) (also -epic- funny) (also the Maxims….) (aw heck, just go already…)

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      2. Yes, we’re talking about Samuel 15:3. G-d knew very well how to deal with a death cult. And don’t forget what happened to Noah’s contemporaries, as well as Sodom and Gomorrah.

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        1. “Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” I Samuel 15:3 (NKJV)

          Doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room.

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            1. Might have been so that the Israelites didn’t view it as an opportunity for plunder rather than a righteous punishment inflicted by The Lord.

              Clearly, though, that particular message was lost on the intended recipients…

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        2. To play Devil’s Advocate: Noah’s contemporaries, as well as the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah, were killed by God Himself. It might make sense that an omniscient God might take actions that He doesn’t want us failable mortals to take on our own initiative. If you really wanted to stretch, you could even apply that to the various tribes the Israelites were ordered to wipe out; God directly spoke to the leaders, deputized them as his agents of judgment, and authorized a one-time exemption from the general “no killing” rule.

          Where I think it’s hard to justify, “He really meant no killing whatsoever” is in the many cases where the laws of Israel (handed down directly from God, if we believe the Bible) demand the death penalty.

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    2. To my knowledge they made so many that they are still issuing Purple Heart medals from that 1945 production run.

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      2. I did a bit of digging, and it turns out that they are, but the Defense Supply Center made “small” (less than 20k each) orders of new medals in the early 1970s, late 1990s, and late 2000s because many of the 1945-produced medals had deteriorated to the point where they were beyond the point of refurbishment and could not be issued. Ironically, right after the 1970s order, the DSC found over 125,000 medals from the ’45 production run in a warehouse, and only a small number of those were deteriorated beyond repair, so the new medals were immediately made redundant.

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        1. Found in the third crate on the left in the row that has the crate labelled “Ark of the…” something or other.

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            1. The crate just has a number on it. The indexing to that number being the “Ark of the….” is part of a file in a folder stuck in a DC basement someplace.

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            2. (Apologies if this ends up being a duplicate. WPDE.)

              Though empirically, someone from the proto-Mossad infiltrated the postwar US military logistics system, found said crate, and shipped it off to Israel sometime in 1948, thus explaining our performance in every war post-1945 and Israel’s repeated diving-catch saves in all of theirs since independance.

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    4. Several years back, I ended up in an online argument who insisted that meat was murder because the Bible said so, and when they were faced with the legal argument that murder is the deliberate killing of a sentient being and not in self-defense, insisted that the definition proved their point.

      Definitely a “detach from discussion and walk away” moment.

      Liked by 1 person

  22. If you are wondering what it is they do want to see…whether they expect Israel (read: Jews) to not defend themselves and to lay down and die….that is correct. A few useful idiots are too stupid to understand that, but the majority want exactly that. Some are willing to actively participate, most do not want to get their own hands dirty but want to see it happen.

    Liked by 1 person

  23. The moral debate I think will go on forever. There will always be a side that supports using the bomb in WWII and those who think it wasn’t needed and should have not been done. In my (very brief 1979-80) period of life when I taught high school history I had an advanced class and we did a project with “kits” where reproduced news stories, government paperwork, etc. were provided and the student got to use it to try and answer if Truman was “right” or not to use the bomb.

    The interesting outcome was some decided he should not have used the bomb however, the vast majority of kids decided he did what he needed to do within that situation. It’s very tough to “walk a mile in their shoes” when second guessing decisions made by others.

    As for those fools who keep poking at Israel – They truly think they can “win” and destroy that which they don’t like and hate. They forget that the other side has a choice too and it may be that they will destroy you in simple self defense from your crazy and unrelenting actions (see World War Two). Sort of like that smaller kid who keeps being pushed around and bullied by the jock and his buddies one day “snaps” and puts the bully and his buddies in the hospital.

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    1. The Reader knows the dog days of summer have arrived when the yearly articles about the evil of our usage of atomic bombs appear.

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  24. “…there was a stern condemnation of … wait for it… carpet bombing German cities in WWII, because killing people was wrong, no matter how good the end.”

    This is so typical of know-nothing Normies. It isn’t even political with them, they just feeeeeeel that its wrong, you know.

    Yes, dropping a 500 pound bomb on a school and blasting it to sh1t is a bad thing. “Think of all the work the builders did putting in those baseboards! Those were really nice baseboards, and now the mean people dropped a bomb and wrecked them!”

    If you say -anything- you are now a Baseboard Hater. The lowest form of crawling scum.

    This is the same appalling stupidity we see from the likes of [redacted] screeching that it is wrong for women to carry weapons, and that what we have to do is teach men not to rape.

    It’s the same argument. It is an argument made attack your social position if you don’t agree. Much like they slapped you in the face.

    Really, there’s nothing to be said. The argument is so ludicrous the only answer is mockery and shaming the fool who started it. Slapping them back. Which is ALSO pointless and stupid.

    In other words, Normie monkey games. I don’t play them, myself. For one thing I don’t know the rules, I can’t see the ball and I can’t see the goalposts. For another thing, it’s a stupid gotcha game played by monkeys, and I have stuff to do.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. I have begun to wonder if some people hold this reflexive “pacifism,” because at some level they realize they themselves are capable of unrestrained violence and can’t bear to even consider it.
      “Methinks thou dost protest too much.”

      Liked by 1 person

        1. I recall a good article by Lawdog on that subject a few years back. IIRC, he called it “The Beast”. That state of mind where you are no longer holding back, and are capable (mentally & emotionally) of doing anything to anybody if they’re threatening the people/places/things you’re trying to protect. And everyone has it, lying somewhere inside them, ready to come out at the right triggers. (A threat to the life of spouse and/or kids is the most common trigger, of course, but there are others.)

          Those who adamantly deny that they have such a latent state of being inside them, are those who have no clue what will trigger their own Beast state, and therefore don’t know how to keep it under control. Those who know what triggers their own Beast, know how to control it. And are, therefore, much safer to be around.

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      2. Reflexive pacifism is a good way to put it. I’ve seen it a lot in the anti-gun crowd. You can’t have weapons around because what if somebody just “snaps” and uses the weapon?

        Meaning that they know that -they- would like to kill some people, thank you very much, and they fear that others are like them.

        Best argument for owning a gun is the anti-gun crowd. Murderous perverts, the lot of them.

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  25. Unrelated to the content of the post, but does anyone know WHY it’s apparently impossible for these AI image generators to grok the human hand?

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      2. Human artists have some issues with human feet, much more issue with human hands, and, curiously, issues with horses. Though it might be that audiences are more forgiving (ignorant?) of other things they might have issues with.

        Liked by 1 person

    3. Because no one has bothered to introduce AI image generators to the underpinnings of the human body. Or the horse body, or birds, bugs etc.

      LLMs are not intelligent. They just match pictures to queries and fill in the blanks. You can’t draw a hand properly by doing that, as we see from the crazy output of LLMs.

      At some point some (probably an artist) irritated individual will find a way to make LLMs build their images around proper anatomy. Then you’ll see some decently rendered hands.

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  26. Recommend you hit your church bulletin with a bright pink highlighter and go ask your pastor “WTF is this crap?” Then let him know you understand Just War Doctrine w-a-a-y better than he does.

    Liked by 1 person

  27. The Palestinians have spent 50 years proving that they can’t live in a civilized society. That there can be no peace for Israel so long as a single Palestinian lives in Gaza. Those are the terms they have set. The terms the Israelis have to live by if they want to survive. Well, so be it. The war should end when there ARE no Palestinians living in Gaza. Kill as many as necessary to force them all out, permanently.

    They started the war by committing unspeakable atrocities. Then, the minute they start getting their asses kicked, they whine for the ‘Peace!’ and ‘Mercy!’ which they denied to all the people they murdered. They deserve exactly as much as they gave.

    They’ve had their ‘2-state solution’ for years, and look what they did with it. Now it’s time for the ‘no-state solution’ — unless they’re hankering to be on the receiving end of a Final Solution. They’ve proven that there are no workable alternatives.

    From the river to the sea, Israel must be free!
    ———————————
    Why does the government support our enemies and stab our allies in the back?

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Badump-shing! Thank you, thank you, 11B will be here all week, remember to tip your waitress, and try the veal!

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  29. The British did night carpet bombing to preserve their air crews. We attempted pinpoint, strategic, daylight bombing with a few major exceptions (Dresden, Tokyo…) and paid the price in dead airmen.

    After 3 tours in the sandbox I realized that I could not predict any response in a society with a shame and revenge based religion layered on a16th century culture.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. The USAAF daylight term “precision” was very relative, only arguable compared to the RAF’s “generally roughly in the vicinity of a city” night raids. Which the Brits knew – when you can’t reliably hit the munitions factory, you can still burn down all the factory workers housing.

      The RAF still got beat up pretty badly by radar-guided night flak and night fighters, just nothing like the 8th AF did, especially before the Mustangs could escort them all the way to the target. When they were running day unescorted raids the 8th AF were just getting hammered, which is exactly the experience the RAF daylight raids had early on which made Bomber Harris switch Bomber Command to only run night raids.

      Curtis LeMay did the same thing in the Pacific when he took over, where the B-29s were taking too many losses flying up high doing daylight raids over Japan even with escorts, so he switched them to run low level night incendiary raids.

      And all the post war bombing surveys found that only the POL targeting ever did any little bit of good as a strategic target, while there was absolutely no impact on the “enemy will to fight” or “shortening the war” that was touted by bomber advocates anywhere strategic bombing was employed.

      The only real impact of sacrificing all those kids 20,000ft over Germany was to strip both fronts of Luftwaffe fighters so they could pull them back home to use them for bomber intercepts.

      Enola Gay and BocksCar were a different story, as one plane-one city was a completely different calculus. But strategic bombing in WWII ended up delivering less than promised for a far greater cost.

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  30. Hamas is 100% in adherence with Muslim taqiyah. There is no sin in lying to non-Muslims, and they are encouraged to do so, especially when it comes to Jews. Which means you can pretty much bet that they are lying about any ceasefire or peace agreement. And if their word isn’t worth squat, in the interest of keeping yourself as safe as possible, it’s better to exterminate all of them.

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    1. They don’t want what the useful idiots here and abroad are yelling about. The proof is in the pudding:

      <b:AP: Hamas rejects Israeli ceasefire proposal

      The Associated Press said that Hamas has rejected a two-month ceasefire proposed by Israel.

      The media outlet on Tuesday cited an Egyptian official who stated that Hamas refused the Israeli proposal.

      It has been reported that Israel had proposed up to a two-month ceasefire through mediators including Qatar and Egypt, with the aim of achieving the release of all hostages held by Hamas.

      https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240124_07/

      The only proposal from Hamas on the table – leave Hamas in power in Gaza, permanent ceasefire, and withdrawal of all IDF forces forever – amounts to Israeli surrender.

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      1. Don’t bother trying to reconcile the bullshit of “hamassholes” here in the states. They are the same false-flag fifth-column treason-shitweasels that run around in blac-bloc.

        Communists and their useful nincompoops.

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    2. They have lied every other time that there has been a “cease fire” and have boasted about it, and the fact that they use them to re-arm and prepare for their next attack against Israel in their quest to destroy Israel, commit global genocide of Jews, destroy the USA (yes that is explicitly one of their goals along with that of their parent, the Muslim Brotherhood, of which CAIR is front for), and establish a global caliphate governed by strict Sharia. That is the goal of Erdogan and Iran’s Mullahs as well. The only difference between them is the particular brand of fundamentalist Jihadist Islam which will be used along with who will rule the global caliphate.

      Liked by 1 person

  31. My maternal grandfather served on the Pacific front. If we hadn’t bombed Japan, there’s a good chance he never would have come home and then his six children, forty-six grandchildren and over a hundred great-grandchildren wouldn’t exist.

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    1. If we did not drop the nukes there is a good chance Japan and the Japanese people would not exist today. The loss of population fighting off an invasion would more than likely destroyed their viability as a human subspecies and culture.

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  32. Thou Shall Not Kill;
    Has always struck me as one of the commandments that was put there or changed by the powers that be.
    Humans can not live without killing, period dot, end of story. You kill to live, even if you are a vegan, you still kill the crops you eat. If all you eat is something that does not have eyes, you still eat the babies of plants to survive. Grains and Fruits are the baby’s of plants, and you eat them to survive, Vegans are baby killers. It’s absurd, and the dichotomy screws you up. Until you wake up to the fact, that the powers that be changed that long ago so you wouldn’t kill them. It most likely was “Thou Shall Not Murder”.
    Thou Shall Not Kill, does not make any sense.

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    2. “It is not pleasant to kill any creature, but to pretend that one can live without doing so is self-deception. There has to be meat in the dish, there have to be vegetables forbidden to flower, seeds forbidden to germinate; even the cycles of microbes must be sacrificed for us to continue our cycles. It is neither shameful nor shocking that it should be so. It is simply a part of the great revolving wheel of natural economy.”
      — The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham

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    3. Semantic drift.

      In Elizabethan English, “murder” was what we now call “assassination”; “kill”, “murder”; “slay”, “kill.”

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  33. As far as Hamyass and phony Palestinians, kill them, kill them all, stop only when there are no more to kill.

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    1. MLK and others had such an alternate solution– that of non-violent resistance. It wasn’t against their own genocide, but the principle holds true. That in order for the mistreatment to stop, the aggressors had to be shown to be violating their own moral code. Since in the case of Hitler and Hamas there are NO recognizable moral codes involved, they must be “eliminated” as quickly and effectively as possible, like some bacterial scourge.

      Liked by 1 person

  34. BTW, the Bible tells us to “turn the other cheek.” It does NOT say what might happen if somebody swings at it. FAFO.

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    1. A former Methodist pastor (and also former Jesuit; he left the order to get married) claimed that we don’t quite get Jesus’ actual commands. For example, a Roman soldier could get away with striking a civilian in the face, but if you turned the other cheek, he would probably backhand you on a second blow, which was a no-no. Likewise, the Romans could compel you to carry their gear a set distance, but if you carried it farther and they got caught, they were in trouble.
      Have no idea is this is actually true but it’s certainly an interesting take.

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      1. I’ve heard that also, but I don’t know enough about the Roman Army to be able to find a Roman source (or even non-Roman contemporary source.)

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    2. The sort-of retired Episcopal pastor who was acting as minister for the Friends church* in $TINY_TOWN claimed that turning the other cheek was an act of defiance.

      ((*)) There’s not much to bar someone from acting as a Friends minister. I found it weird, though the Yearly Meeting seemed to draw the line with the guy who followed the EX-piscopal. And that guy’s successor was even worse. The congregation collapsed a few years later**. IMHO, if you want an example of an “unstable denomination”, look for a Friends.

      ((**)) There were some good ones I met. One was a doctor with Medical Teams International, AFAIK, a non-woke(? I think.) alternative to Doctors Without Borders.

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      1. The right cheek would be slapped with the left hand– that’s the poopy hand.
        That’s the insult, you do that to folks who are lower than you.

        Turning the other cheek would be offering the left, which would be slapped with the right– so you’re rejecting the insult, basically, and the attack isn’t even worth getting worked up over.

        There are matching clever aspects to the other instructions as well, although the only one I remember is a Roman soldier could press someone into service for X distance, but if they went over they were in trouble. Malicious enthusiastic compliance….
        Which takes nothing from the modern-important meaning of “they’re being insulting, don’t let it get to you. Insult isn’t harm.”

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        1. Here is another unfortunate truth: It takes two sides to make a peace and only one side to make a war. The “Palestinians” have declined multiple opportunities for a State and for peace. The routinely reject them. The only solution is to hurt them so badly they cannot hurt you anymore.

          Liked by 1 person

  35. Something that I kept reading in a lot of VDH books was that the ancient Greeks considered war to be something like the seasons of the year-you were going to get them, they were going to happen on a fairly regular and predictable basis, and they were going to happen no matter what you did. All you could do was deal with the changing of the seasons, as it were.

    I would prefer a world without war. But as long as one person thinks that they can get what they want by violence-and can organize others to help them-there will be war.

    We should be better at war, if only to ensure that any bullies that think they are more ruthless than we are learn that lesson the hard way.

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  36. Off topic. I is sick. 101.8 fever last night. So far avoiding the congestion hubby and son has had. We’ll see. Also, hubby hasn’t been contagious for over a week, son even longer. Sigh. Had hoped to not catch this one.

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    1. Take care. There is a nasty “upper respiratory infection” / bronchitis circulating. I managed to catch it, and despite much doc work, it developed until pneumonia. If you start hearing bubbly/crackle, that is bad news. Don’t wait. Go.

      Gurgle…. urk.

      Don’t tough it out.

      (Grin)

      Doc says I should pull through.

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      1. Glad you are getting better.

        Hubby and son are still coughing at night to get rid of the mucus. Hubby did go to the clinic (couldn’t get in to see our doctor) and was given a prescription for the coughing spasms (Mucinex would work too, I picked some of that up to have it on hand).

        I haven’t had the congestion. I hit it with NyQuil, and Advil, as soon as the upper sore throat hit. Didn’t stop the fever, but (knock on wood) the congestion has be held off. I can’t have my nasal passages closed. I wear a mouth piece for sleep apnea, makes breathing through my mouth at night difficult. Can’t sleep without it.

        Don’t know if it is the same thing they had, or I picked up something else. Other than the lingering cough, son hasn’t been contagious for almost two weeks, and hubby for over a week. Odds are it is.

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        2. Yikes. Get well soon.

          I’ve shied away from Mucinex because of the additives they use with the guaifenesin. (I don’t need/want decongestants. I have enough cardiac issues, and really don’t care for dextromorphin.) Costco stopped selling the straight stuff, so we bought some from the ‘zon.

          When we got the Chicom-flu in March ’20, guaifenesin helped keep us alive.

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  38. It’s been very enlightening to witness the same crowd who’ve been screaming about Nazis and the coming of the Fourth Reich for the past eight years cheerleading for the same people who want to kill Jews.

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  39. Yes. Once you know who the barbarians are, you must kill them, or they will bring down civilization. Human history is basically a succession of these events, resolved one way or the other: the death of the barbarians or the destruction of civilization.

    The First Punic War went on for 20+ years, until both Rome and Carthage were left on the edge of bankruptcy by the time Rome won. Twenty years later, the Second Punic War went on for another 20+ years before Rome won. Fifty years later comes the Third Punic War. Rome besieged Carthage for three years, and eventually took the city. They killed everyone they found for a week, then took the rest prisoner and sold them into slavery. They burned the city to the ground. Then they knocked all the remaining stone walls down. They burned all the books, all the libraries, all the papers. Nothing remained.

    That was the last of the Punic Wars.

    Liked by 1 person

  40. Israel know the attack was coming, having been warned by Egyptian intelligence as well as their own. Still a stand down order was issued at 0430 that morning and the border posts abandoned. Then it took the IDF seven hours to respond. WTAF?

    It looks to me like they wanted a pretext for war, perhaps to put paid to the Gaza ulcer. As usual in war, the situation is getting out of control.

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    1. You cannot possibly be so gullable as to believe anyone would do such an incredibly stupid thing.

      The jihadiots need no help with ill-timed barbarities. They are broken-record reliable in repeating them.

      Just stop. You are doing evil.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. “It looks to me like they wanted a pretext for war, perhaps to put paid to the Gaza ulcer. As usual in war, the situation is getting out of control.”

      You’re thinking too narrowly. Netanyahu is also contending with a Deep State; if you look at the last three years of Israeli politics, it becomes obvious, just as it did with Donald Trump.

      They have been looking for ways to make Netanyahu look bad, because in a parliamentary system the Prime Minister resigns when things go badly. They also had natural allies in the US Deep State, which is notably pro-Arab / anti-Israel, and Israel depends on US intel in addition to its’ own capabilities.

      There’s been speculation that the danger was downplayed or hidden, but Hamas was better prepared than they thought, and they lost control of events. After what we’ve all seen here, can you really discount it?

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    3. Israel mostly suffered from gun control on October 7th. The insanity of instituting civilian gun restrictions on farms sitting next to the Gaza fence became very apparent on October 8th. It cost them 1,200++ murdered civilians and 400 hostages.

      In the few places where the civilians had their sh1t together and fought back, there were fewer dead/kidnapped/tortured civilians. By a lot.

      I don’t hear many people talking about that. I do hear a lot of “false flag” and ‘pretext for war” blather from people.

      Liked by 1 person

        2. I saw last week or so that HamAss went full-Oceania and declared that all the video they released of their guys doing all the things they did… was fake and a trick by the IDF. This after having bragged for three months about how badass they were for doing it. Usual Suspects seem to be buying it.

          On the bright side today I saw where a bunch of IDF guys infiltrated a West Bank hospital (That’s West Bank, not Gaza, mind you) and “dealt with” a bunch of HamAss terrorists in a secret room hidden in the middle of the sick people, kids and little babies.

          Stay classy, HamAss.

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  41. I’m late again, aren’t I########am I not########ain’t I? (There, I said it!)

    I heard a VDH today on a vid about WWII. It was, so far as we know, the first (big) war in which the losers killed more than the winners. (Many more) And the civilian deaths, mostly in China, outnumbered the uniformed military deaths.

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