For about a month the government of the Philippines has been fighting a group who has pledged allegiance to ISIS. The battle is in Marawi City, about an hour from my family’s city, where I have built a house and live part-time. We have relatives in Davao City, where...
The Debacle of Mosul and Beyond
What can we learn from the battle of Mosul, now projected at over seven months? That the USA (other than endless war) has no idea what it is doing, what it is up against, and what victory would even look like against ISIS. ISIS took the Mosul region in six days with a...
The Rot from Within: Character Disorders of the Republic
In reading a number of books on the destructive manipulative behavior of people with personality disorders I became increasingly struck by how the behavior of our politicians and our nation, especially with respect to foreign policy, was so precisely described. The...
The Stray Bullet Theory
Since the invasion of Afghanistan for the purpose of overthrowing its government, I have wondered what to call the stupidity of the operative theory. There is no superior strategy for getting Bin Laden than the strategy of getting Bin Laden. Anything other than that...