Lt. Colonel Bill Russell is running for the 12th US Congressional district seat (PA) which is currently occupied by Jack Murtha. You remember him, don’t you? He is the Democrat who condemned 8 Marines for alleged actions taken in Haditha. He did not…

Your second point, though… this is the same Dr. John Prados who has spent decades “debunking” every foreign policy decision made b y the US government from the Gulf of Tonkin onwards. Sure, his scholarship and 20-20 hindsight has brought a few acorns to light, but always and only it seems in such a way as to advance his personal agendas. I know more than my share of academia nut fruitcakes like him (don’t know him personally, but have read some of his work) to want to sift his source documents for myself.

Let’s have a Mel Brooks-ish “Conspiracy Theory II” from a pastiche of his past works. That’d work for me about as well as reading his conclusions, IMO. It’d at least have entertainment value (although how Brooks could top “Spingtime and Hitler”–from “The Producers”, of course–for a sendup of “Hoodwinked” I just can’t imagine).

(Call me an iconoclast if you want. Heck, I even like to point out Kurt Aland’s biases–and concommitant dishonest scholarship–to NT Greek students. Sacrilege! *heh*)

Granted, the Iraq adventure in Neo-Jacobinism was ill-thought-out. The fact that Iraq had many multiple serial violations of the Gulf War cease fire gave the US adequate reason under international law to resume the Gulf War, but not adequate reason to finish what Bush I wimped out on. No, the real crime here was not the war itself but the waging of the peace, such as it was not. Stupid Neo-Jacobin policy resulted in the even stupider Bremmer administration in Iraq that led directly to the mess the Bush admionistration has wallowed through since. *sigh* Any one of a multitude of foreign adventures into the area for the past several millennia could have informed the administration of the folly of Bremmer’s policies. But, Santayana’s Axiom,

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,”

has a corollary,

“In a democracy, those who refuse to learn from history are in the majority and dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance.”-third world county’s corollary to Santayana’s Axiom

(Of course, in general, whatever faction rules in any government, it is generally dominated by those who refuse to learn from history. It’s a human condition. Worse, perhaps, in rule by mob though.)

Western Civilization is doomed by those truths, IMO, though Burnham’s postulation that,

“Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western civilization as it commits suicide,”

is, of course, false on its face. Liberalism is no problem at all. It is those who today falsely call themselves liberals (or progressives or whatever catchphrase will palatably substitute for “faux commie elitist anarcho-tyranists”) who provide a “philosophy of consolation for Western civilization as it commits suicide.” (Burnham does make a good case for his comment in his analysis of modern so-called liberalism.)

And, after reading a bit of Parado’s work, he smells a tad of just such ripe, phony liberalism. Just a tad, mind you, but how much manure does it take to taint a glass of milk?