Charley Reese

When you look at the Vietnam War Memorial, with those 57,000 names of dead Americans on it, you should feel anger. All of those young lives were sacrificed by blundering civilian politicians and bureaucrats who made their deaths meaningless. They died because of the posturing and ineptness of politicians in Washington who sent them to … Continue reading “A Waste of Blood”

It’s easy to avoid bigotry if you just remember that most of the time when our minds leap from the particular to the general, we are making an error in reasoning. Inductive reasoning, which goes from many, many particulars to the general, does not condone going from one or two particulars to the general. One … Continue reading “The Persistence of Bigotry”

Most conspiracy buffs underestimate human stupidity. They see people they consider smart and powerful do stupid things, and they think the people must have some hidden ulterior motive. Surely people in such high positions, they think, couldn’t do something that dumb. They should read more history. In the first place, lots of people are rich, … Continue reading “Conspiracy, or Stupidity?”

There will eventually be another terrorist act inside the United States. The question is, How will we react? If we react the same way we did to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we will probably wreck our economy. We should learn from the Israelis. When there is a terror attack, … Continue reading “If You Want War, Get Used to Blood”

I don’t know what caused it. Maybe it was the president’s imperialistic foreign policy. At any rate, I had a sudden urge to read Rudyard Kipling. I reread Kim and The Jungle Book. Both of these are excellent works for your children to read. Kim, the little friend of all the world, and Mowgli, who … Continue reading “Kipling’s Back”

Turns out, according to the Washington Post, the information on which the latest terrorist scare is based is two to three years old. It was sold to the American public initially as if it were a brand-new discovery. It seems that the Bush administration is unable to level with the American people about anything. So … Continue reading “And So It Goes”

Robert Fisk is a reporter for the British newspaper The Independent. He has spent decades in the Middle East, and I know of no reporter who is his equal in that area of the world. After five weeks in Iraq, he recently reported a very pessimistic assessment of the situation. Keep in mind that Fisk … Continue reading “Iraq on the Verge of Implosion”

Books keep pouring off the presses on the subject of why George W. Bush should not be reelected. I got four in my mailbox recently. Bush might be the biggest boon to book publishing since Harry Potter. The most serious of the four books is The Bubble of American Supremacy, by George Soros. The most … Continue reading “Throwing the Book at Bush”

There is an American Empire, but we should dump it, because we Americans are woefully incompetent when it comes to maintaining empires. One mistake that seems to be a permanent feature of our foreign policy is mirror-imaging. So many American politicians, most of them poorly educated and ignorant of other people and their cultures, tend … Continue reading “Incompetent Imperialists”

Linda Ronstadt dedicated a song to Michael Moore and his film Fahrenheit 9/11 and got the boot from the Aladdin Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. They treated her shabbily, escorting her out of the building without allowing her to return to her room. This came after some members of the audience booed and walked … Continue reading “Destroying Freedom to Save It”