Musings of a Canadian Slacker |
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my thoughts, for what they are worth, on politics, history, military affairs, computer gaming..etc. Meryl Yourish A Small Victory Ghost of a Flea The Command Post WarBlog Argghhh!!! Gaming and such Penny Arcade Excessive Overkill news Call of Duty.org Goodfellas (NCR Elite Blog Mafia) Shenanigans Trudeaupia Inkless Wells Autonomous Source Bound By Gravity All Things Canadian Minority of One Ravishing Light Obsidian Tempest Highway 401 Blog The Phantom Observer Italics Mine Contact me E-mail me 
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Monday, September 27, 2004
Christopher Hitchens seems to be the man of the hour lately. This quote is an example: "However bad the American Empire has been, it is not as bad as this. It is not the Taliban, and anybody - any movement - that cannot see the difference has lost all moral bearings"(see more of Hitchen's interview by Johann Hari) I'd seen him this weekend on Tim Russert's show on CNBC talking with Andrew Sullivan. Some interesting views there...and had made more sense than 90% of what you see passing for punditry on television these days. Hitchens epitomizes the great leap of logic that many of us had to make in the wake of 9/11: we had to start facing reality as it was, not as we wished it was. That the seriousness and immediacy of the threat of Islamofascism is something we cannot wish away. Incidentally, one can read part of Hitchen's weltanschauung pre-9/11 in Martin Amis's affectionate Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million which deals with Stalinism and its impact in the Western intelligentsia. Update Credits to Damian and the Ghost for Hari's interview. Sunday, September 26, 2004
Colonel Pat Strogan of the PPCLI, and late of Afghanistan fame, sounds off about the current state of the Canadian Forces. Some interesting thoughts there, though I'd tend to disagree with the Colonel on his view of the current Iraq war. I am a bit surprised that he'd be so frank in dissing the 'Mandarins' running defence policy. Perhaps he just doesn't want to be a general, or doesn't care.... Some other interesting stories in the series by the Ottawa Citizen. Update Having noted that Strogan's current job is Commander of JOG (Joint Operations Group), I thought I would find out just what the hell JOG is. Evidently, it replaced 1 Canadian Division HQ (thus finally ending the charade that we had the troops to staff a full Division). See here for some details. Fascinating how an organization that replaced a Divisional HQ could be commanded by a Colonel.... Friday, September 24, 2004
On campus, and around town lately, I've found that I see a lot of shirts and paraphenalia that displays the face of the late Argentinian Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Che , of course, was best known for his role in the Cuban revolution. Less well known for his murderous ways after the revolution. And who died trying to foment a Communist insurrection in Bolivia. Lately, especially amongst young hipsters, Che has acquired a certain cachet. I'm not exactly sure why this is...nostalgia for murderous Communists isn't my thing. Apparently it isn't Paul Berman's thing either. (Seen at Let it Bleed, via Damian) Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Perusing John's site yesterday, I came across this rather interesting bit.. Which led me to this enlightening piece by Major General L. Mackenzie (ret.). While looking around the Canadian Forces College site, I found this gem Funny how the "Interweb" can lead you around. . Sunday, September 05, 2004
The terrorist hostage taking in North Ossetia provokes some interesting thought. The Command Post and other sites (of particular merit is Logic and Sanity, whose webmaster has done an amazing job of making available Russian sources in English) have some useful information on the attack and its aftermath. However, I see that many are focussing rather too closely on the Al-Queda aspect. That part is important, but I think there was an element that many Westerners are missing. I think this might have been a play to reignite traditional ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus. The North Ossetians have long been Moscow's stick with which they have beaten the Chechens and Ingush (who are usually Muslim, while the North Ossetians are Orthodox Christian). Beslan is an Ossetian town, not a Russian one. It might well be useful to keep that in mind. It also might be useful to note the things that I noted in some of the news reports: that many of the relatives of the hostages gathered around the school armed with AK-47s and other assorted hardware. And more than a few of them expressed the desire to use them. |