- The “War and Peace Report” has been valuable listening for decades
- decent print journalism? read foreign press
- Joseph Goebbels, when asked by US Ambassador about censorship replied: “Easy in Germany; but how do you do it America? Pick any front page; they all say the same thing!”

- Corruption has always been a problem in US political system, but currently combined with a failure to provide at least a token amount of functional governance
- A few decades back, one insider noted some new to DC do-gooders who “were not in on the joke yet;” - SELF-AGGRANDIZEMENT is the goal

- Now we could have a legitimate conversation about whether USA should give even one dollar to a country that can afford to pay for its (American) armaments itself
- PS, when I was a Navy Flight Instructor, I worked with both Israeli and Muslim pilots and their aircraft

- No one gives contributions to politicians for nothing
- This assumes that those votes were the wrong way to support the USA’s long term best interest; decent citizens could believe either way
- For the record, I would believe nothing that an AIPAC rep said, but I might agree or not w/politician

- So for example, Reagan’s remarks referred to mercenaries financed by a corrupt triangle between Iran, Israel and the Contras, all in an effort to evade Congressional oversight
- But it made a good sound bite on the evening news perhaps

Just the opposite! Much of the current decline started with his “Acting President” Administration
- trying to show a little different framing of how diverse people see the same things differently

- I recall Reagan saying something like “one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter”
- ALL political action organizations are suspect
- Not everyone on this site has Black & White views of the world or citizens living in different countries

- Hey, I appreciate almost criticism of AIPAC itself, but you did not link the apparent contribution to how that would affect this politician’s actions
- Having worked with diverse politicians to further better care for Veterans, it seems no easy job to find an effective answer without $$ support

Oh goody! Let us only allow super-rich people to run for office, because campaigns are expensive and not everyone can raise enough with 5 dollar donations per person

As a former Marine, perhaps JD is familiar with the phrase:

“Look who has yet another turn in the barrel!”

Have to tell my son who has been living in Germany!

Nuremberg& NAZIS:
- “The Banality of Evil”
- Had a veteran client who was one of the regular enlisted US Army guards assigned to guard the former Air Marshal and #2 Nazi Hermann Goring, with whom he seemed to have become pretty friendly
- The Devil has not an unfriendly disposition nor acid breath

Thank you!
- Racial laws enacted in 1882, 1907, 1924, all by Republican administrations reinforced animus towards Orientals at a time when Japanese spies in Hawaii had been confirmed and the Army recommended the internment
- FDR had used up all his political capital to prepare against coming war

Thank you for thoughtful ideas!
- I have been fighting off insomnia by reexamining the end-game of WWII in the Pacific; a depressing situation that has been elevated however by your trenchant observations
- Cheers and goodnight

- Iran Civilization like ALL successful ones had gone through multiple changes since its heyday 2,500 years ago
- By 1900 it was subject to zones of influence by three hostile powers. The government that evolved was an improvement upon pre-1900 but needed help from least of several evils

Enthusiastically agreed!
* “Ask not what your Country can do for you..”
* However, do not believe a large % of Americans should “win the lottery” to require either type of service, and am NOT supportive of creation of a large Government Bureau managing public service

- At the Naval Academy my senior paper was on Strategic bombing and its effects in Germany
- Typically two to four times as many war material categories were produced at the height of bombing than early wartime
* PS: more US Strategic Bomber aircrew died than ALL US Marines in WWII

- You mean the wholesale targeting of civilians’s homes during WWII?
- In German cities, maps were analyzed to predict the areas where the most concentrated living quarters would be susceptible to spreading fires to most efficiently “de-house” those civilians
- Precision Bombing at best 7% effective

Two factors:
- only 0.7% of citizens are in active or reserve military, thus merely a convenient meme to be trotted out by the political class that is only in Washington to feather its own nests
- politics is not a spectator sport; average citizen has adopted the obverse of the politicians: cynical

- The 1953 Mossadegh affair was a complex situation, and the second act of a movement towards democracy just after turn of century in Iran
- The Iranian pilots our squadron trained were of the “700 Families” that ran Iran; very sophisticated, modern and more tolerant than in most other civilizations

- In second Iraq War, the now-dominant Executive Branch was able to “Race with their Checkbook” by buying more Contractor Private Soldiers than those from the “All Volunteer Force” and more expensive sophisticated stand-off weapons
- Despite $$ USA spent, ISIS and other low-tech fighters multiplied

- After Vietnam, the Army and the political elite started to draw divergent lessons
- All Volunteer Force would narrow the social base of the Army
- Pentagon began integrating Reserves into all active duty units to spread the pain if the increasingly professional depended upon part-timers

The current Iran Government has survived in part by exporting terror
- Drones being more effective in soft targets does not mean that even this cruel but rational government is preferring to randomly kill civilians; but their potential utility in that regard is troubling in any government’s hands

- Regulations help, but
- A Military of citizens subject to draft of potentially ALL able adults, who are incentivized to vote by being schooled in mandatory Civics as a graduation requirement from primary education would give the society members more “skin in the game” (literally)

I agree!
- Too bad that does not shift the entire focus of a civilization’s goals
- After the Warring States period in China, where entire societies were mobilized for the purpose of warfare, a unified Empire developed that removed most citizens from military and installed more efficient governance

- Hitler reputedly once asked how many divisions the Pope commanded
- Nonetheless, the Third Reich went to great extremes to blunt the influence of the Catholic Church
- Which today is largest denomination in USA
- A professional, theologically sophisticated one that threatens “Cafeteria Christians”

So for example, the “cheap” drones are evolving quickly:
- by civilizations under life and death wartime pressure and
- with increasing use of AI that will require enormous commitment of energy resources to win the Cheap Drone Arms Race
- as weapons for indiscriminate use against civilian targets

There is no way to break out of the cycle of cheaper military methods countering more expensive ones
- The overall cost of the typical war goes up, not down; for example when hand-held rockets are shooting down aircraft, tactics and technology change; more civilians often killed
* DIPLOMACY!!

History tells us there will be expensive “solutions:”
- Eons ago, chariots commanded by nobles were countered by mass armies raised by committing whole societies to warfare
- Around 1900, cheap motor torpedo boats were countered by “Torpedo Boat Destroyers” later known simply as Destroyers

Great article! Used to drive through it; was coal country; now trash & human feces recycling (really!), so I am reminded of a politician speaking of $h!t-h0le countries
* Voted overwhelmingly for the RED slate last election
* Population would increase from 2,000 to 8,000 and NO medical facilities??