Tag Archives: responsibilities

A Reading List

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Much has been made of the reading lists promoted by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and JCS Chairman General Mark Milley over the perceived woke and communism-promoting contents of their lists. Few, however, have offered their alternative lists. Herewith, the core (not the totality) of mine. It’s not segregated into suitability for junior, field grade, and flag officers; this is for all.

First:

  • Our Declaration of Independence
  • Our Constitution
  • Your Officer’s Commission as promulgated by the Secretary of [the Air Force in my case]
  • Your Oath of Office

These should be reviewed frequently.

Then, in no particular order:

  • The Federalist Papers
  • The Anti-Federalist Papers
  • Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II, Sean McMeekin
  • The Art of War, Sun Tzu
  • Art of War, Niccolò Machiavelli
  • The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli
  • Discourses, Niccolo Machiavelli
  • On War, Carl von Clausewitz
  • Hamlet, William Shakespeare
  • King Lear, William Shakespeare
  • The Republic and the Laws, Cicero
  • Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
  • The Republic, Plato
  • The Allegory of the Cave, Plato
  • The Persians, Aeschylus
  • The Seven against Thebes, Aeschylus
  • Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle
  • Republic, Aristotle
  • Apologia, Socrates
  • The Hundred-Year Marathon, Michael Pillsbury
  • Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky
  • Just War Against Terror, Jean Bethke Elshtain
  • Just War Theory, Jean Bethke Elshtain, ed.
  • Just and Unjust Wars, Michael Walzer
  • Rethinking the Just War Tradition, Michael Brough, John Lango, Henry van der Linden, eds.
  • The Art of War, Antoine-Henri, Baron Jomini
  • Unrestricted Warfare, Colonel Qiao Liang and Colonel Wang Xiangsui
  • The Fall of Carthage, Adrian Goldsworthy
  • Rethinking the Principles of War, Anthony McIvor, ed.
  • Introduction to Strategy, André Beaufre

At the risk of self-promotion:

  • A Conservative’s View of American National Policy, Eric Hines
  • A Conservative’s Treatise on American Government, Eric Hines
  • A Conservative’s View of the American Concept of Law, Eric Hines
  • A Conservative’s View of the Conduct of Just Wars, Eric Hines

There are many more that would add effectively to an American officer’s library, but these, I claim, make a good start. Others will have other ideas, and I’m all ears, and all eyes on the Comments.

Missed the Point

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President Joe Biden (D) took a break, Monday, from his vacation (which he decided to go on during his Afghanistan failure) to come to the White House and deliver a 20-minute talk about why he’d taken us out of Afghanistan so precipitously. Then he returned to his vacation.

Just the News thinks he messed up with his speech.

Forced to confront bipartisan anger over the bungled US exit from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden instead gave a speech on why drawing down US troops after two decades [of] war was in the American interest.
In so doing, he missed the point.

It’s true enough, as JtN goes on to say, that most Americans wanted us out of Afghanistan, and it’s true enough, as JtN adds, that what we didn’t want was the utter failure of Biden’s withdrawal execution.

But JtN missed the point of Biden’s little talk.

Biden didn’t interrupt his vacation to justify his withdrawal or his method of withdrawal. On the contrary, Biden disrupted his vacation to make a Saul Alinsky-esque effort to change the subject from his bungled withdrawal to the subject of it being everyone else’s fault we still were there, and it being the Afghans’ fault their government didn’t perform up to snuff.

That Biden botched even that simple task is just a measure of the man’s own, continuingd, failure to perform up to snuff.

The Biden/Harris Failure

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RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has most of the right of the matter. Never mind that she speaks from one side of the aisle, the truth of her remarks on this item is independent of that.

Biden has betrayed our allies and our own military in the wake of his failure. Thousands of translators and Afghan Special Forces who bravely fought alongside American troops now risk being executed in the streets. And the sacrifices made by our military men and women—who have fought, been wounded, and died in Afghanistan for decades—have been disrespected beyond measure.

I wrote that McDaniel has mostly right. She actually has understated the matter.

President Joe Biden (D) also has betrayed the United States, all of us citizens, and especially those Americans still in Afghanistan.

National security officials in the Biden administration told a bipartisan group of Senate staffers on Tuesday that about 10,000 to 15,000 US citizens remain in Afghanistan, according to two Senate aides.
…
According to the aides, the administration officials—from the State and Defense departments, as well as the National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff—also told the assembled Senate staffers that there is no plan to evacuate Americans who are outside Kabul, as they do not have a way of getting through the Taliban checkpoints outside the Afghan capital.

Not even a matter of no plan for their evacuation. No interest at all in going and getting them. They’re on their own, abandoned by the Biden/Harris administration (Joe’s required designation).

But Biden gets his vacation. The Biden/Harris administration’s Vice President Kamala Harris, also a Progressive-Democrat, gets her disappearance.

Does Biden’s perfidy—or Harris’—have any bottom at all?

America Last Again

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In the collapse of the US presence in Afghanistan and the collapse of the Afghan “army” and so of that pseudo-nation, there is a wholly justified effort to help Afghan refugees escape from the coming destruction and slaughter.

However.

This is what our President Biden/Harris and their Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin are doing about that:

[Department of Defense Press Secretary Admiral (Ret) John] Kirby says American citizens will not be given priority evacuation over Afghan SIV [Special Immigrant Visa] applicants.

In Biden/Harris’ and Austin’s own words, recited by Kirby:

We’re going to focus on getting people out of the country, then sorting it out at the next stop. It’s not going to be just Americans first, then SIV applicants. We’re going to focus on getting as many folks out as we can.

It’s not going to be just Americans first.

Wow.

Not even in this administration’s present failure are these folks putting Americans anywhere but the back of the metaphorical bus.

“I’m no different than any other family”

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That’s what New Jersey Phil Murphy (D) says about his decision to hare off to Italy on a 10-day vacation at his—his!—23-room villa.

“After this past 17 months, just having a few days together is something that I think all of us want to do with our family, and I’m looking forward to that.”
The governor planned to leave last Tuesday for a visit to his 23-room multimillion-dollar villa in Umbria and return to New Jersey next Thursday[.]

My objection to Murphy’s move, which he’s in the middle of, has nothing to do with his being wealthy enough to own a vast villa in an overseas tourist mecca; I aspire to become stinking rich, too. Nor do I object to Murphy taking some vacation time.

No, my objection is to Murphy’s utter cynicism. He’s not looking to hav[e] a few days together with his family; he’s been doing that right along. So have we all, especially those of us in States like New Jersey where, through government-ordered lockdowns, we’ve been on-again, off-again prisoners in our homes. Murphy is looking to escape his duties.

He’s not looking to have a vacation, either; he’s looking to escape from his State—from our nation—during a period of crisis for his State. He’s looking to duck his responsibilities.

Murphy is Governor of New Jersey. His duties don’t go on vacation; they go with him wherever he goes. Except to Italy, where even were he aware of events back in New Jersey (he likely will be), he’ll in no position to deal with them in anything remotely like a timely manner.

Even President Joe Biden (D) hasn’t left our nation for his vacation—he’s just taking a few days of isolation from his duties in Delaware.

How obliviously out of touch with the average Americans in his State and around our nation is this Progressive-Democrat.

Or, how cynically unconcerned is this Progressive-Democrat with the ordinary American family, comparing himself only with his fellow rich.