Category: War and Peace
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The Ever-Increasing Frenzy, Tension, and Explosiveness of This Country
Try to guess when the following was written, and by whom. Answer below the fold: Ever increasing frenzy, tension, explosiveness of this country. You feel it in the monastery with people like Raymond. In the priesthood with so many upset, one way or another, and so many leaving. So many just cracking up, falling apart.…
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The Moral Equivalentism of the Left: “We Are All Islamic State”
Chris Hedges well illustrates the leftist obsession with moral equivalentism in his piece, "We are All Islamic State." I will quote some portions, then comment. The piece begins: Revenge is the psychological engine of war. Victims are the blood currency. Their corpses are used to sanctify acts of indiscriminate murder. Those defined as the enemy…
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Muslim Atrocities Against Christians and their Churches
Howard Kainz, The Church and Islam: Pope Benedict XVI touched on alleged “evil” in Islam very lightly in his famous 2006 lecture at Regensburg on the necessity of uniting reason and religion. He cited the example of a 14th century emperor’s view of Islam as irrationally violent and thus evil. This touched off a world-wide…
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Thomas Nagel on Drone Warfare
Here
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Christianity and Nukes
Clear thinking about a difficult topic.
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American Sniper
It's a movie I haven't seen. I have no strong desire see it. I understand the principle; why do I need to rub my nose in the details? I know what a sniper is and I know what he does. It is an awful world in which snipers are needed, but they are, and they…
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Bibi and Barry: Fundamental Differences
Daniel Greenfield: In 1967, Benjamin Netanyahu skipped his high school graduation in Pennsylvania to head off to Israel to help in the Six Day War. That same year Obama moved with his mother to Indonesia. When Obama suggested that Israel return to the pre-1967 borders, described by Ambassador Eban, no right-winger, as “Auschwitz borders,” it…
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Robert Paul Wolff on Netanyahu
When the otherwise distinguished Robert Paul Wolff over at The Philosopher's Stone plays the stoned philosopher and quits the reservation of Good Sense, I call him 'Howlin' Wolff.' Hear him howl: I need to say this. If anyone wants to call me a self-hating Jew, so be it. Israel is far and away the militarily…
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‘Religion of Peace’ is not a Harmless Platitude
Douglas Murray's article from The Spectator is so good I have reproduced the whole of it. (HT: Joel Hunter) Study the article. Pass it on. If you live in the West and enjoy its freedoms and liberties, then you have a moral obligation to do your bit in defense of it and them. People have…
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Jason Mattera’s Ambush Tactics Defended
This just over the transom from a reader: You wrote: ". . . one must turn their own Alinsky tactics against them . . . . Conservatives should not allow themselves to be hobbled by their own civility and high standards." I completely agree which is why I support the ambush tactics of Jason Mattera (most…
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Not Enough ‘Skin in the Game’
There is much to be said in favor of a voluntary military, but on the debit side there is this: only those with 'skin in the game' — either their own or that of their loved ones — properly appreciate the costs of foreign military interventions. I say that as a conservative, not a libertarian.…
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Israel, Hamas, and the Doctrine of Double Effect
A reader asks whether Israel's actions against Hamas are defensible according to the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE). According to the New Catholic Encylopedia, an action is defensible according to DDE if all four of the following conditions are met: (1) The act itself must be morally good or at least indifferent. (2) The agent…
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No Cease-Fire!
Thomas Sowell: [. . .] According to the New York Times, Secretary of State John Kerry is hoping for a cease-fire to "open the door to Israeli and Palestinian negotiations for a long-term solution." President Obama has urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to have an "immediate, unconditional humanitarian cease-fire" — again, with the idea…
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Weakness is No Justification: The Converse Callicles Principle
Might does not make right, but neither does impotence or relative weakness. That weakness does not justify strikes me as an important principle, but I have never seen it articulated. The Left tends to assume the opposite. They tend to assume that mightlessness makes right. I'll dub this the Converse Callicles Principle. The power I have to…
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The Militant Nihilism of Radical Islam
I don't believe I have ever read a column by Richard Fernandez of The Belmont Club that is more penetrating, thought-provoking, or chilling than his Seven Gambit. Excerpts: Just as soon as Israel accepted an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire Hamas fired 47 rockets killing one Israeli citizen. Anyone who has followed the conflict could have predicted this…