Sic Semper Tyrannis

"Strike The Tent" trilogy by W. Patrick Lang

     

Available from:

 iUniverse

http://www.iuniverse.com/Bookstore/BookSearchResults.aspx?Search=patrick%20lang

E-Book version of all three available at iUniverse

Barnes and Noble

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/W--Patrick-Lang?keyword=W.+Patrick+Lang&store=allproducts&iehack=%E2%98%A0

Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Butchers-Cleaver-Confederate-Secret-Services/dp/0595474764/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358700423&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Butcher%27s+Cleaver

I was interviewed some time ago by the North Carolina Museum of History concerning the writing of this trilogy.

"The Confederate Secret Services, a conversation with W. Patrick Lang, novelist, retired U.S. Army colonel, and military intelligence consultant

Patrick Lang discusses his two novels, The Butcher’s Cleaver and Death Piled Hard, both of which focus on Claude Devereux, a Virginia banker who is recruited by the Confederate secret service and placed in the office of Union secretary of war Edwin Stanton. Approximate run time: 24 minutes. Podcast " 

This podcast is highly recommended

http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/civil-war-and-reconstruction

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"Science currently holds that time travel is an impossibility, but readers of Down the Sky, thefinal volume of Colonel Pat Lang’s Strike the Tent trilogy will question that assertion. Code-named “Hannibal,” Confederate penetration agent Claude Devereux is firmly lodged in the upper echelons of the Federal war machine. Now a Brigadier General of the Union forces with the new Congressional Medal of Honor on his chest, Major Devereux of the Confederate Secret Service knows time is running out. His minders in Richmond may no longer trust him, his personal life is a shambles, and Union spy-catcher Lafayette Baker is determined to bring him down. Only his peculiar, personal friendship with President Lincoln holds his enemies at bay.

Claude’s missions for the Federal War Department take him to major battles, and the reader will experience Cedar Creek, and Fort Fisher as if in person. The vision of Lincoln standing in full view of the Confederate sharpshooters at Fort Stephens is indelible, as is the vignette of a severely wounded Union officer on the grounds of the Belle Grove Plantation after Cedar Creek. Such a view of battle could only have come from the author’s personal experiences.

The book stands alone, but it is a worthy successor to its two predecessors, The Butcher’s Cleaver, and Death Piled Hard. The great Shelby Foote said:

'The Civil War brings everything into a sharper focus with heightened color. Anytime you want to study human behavior, it is well to study the Civil War, because in that you study human behavior under terrific pressure and heat. So that men show what they are for good or bad more readily than in ordinary times.'

Readers of the trilogy, and of Down the Sky in particular will find this unerringly demonstrated by the historical rigor and deep creativity of Patrick Lang.

James Peak

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These books are available in electronic formats to include "Kindle' from major vendors. pl

"Tattoo," A Memoir of Becoming

This memoir could have been subtitled "a message in a bottle."  PL

I am privileged to have been given reviews of the book by two people I greatly respect and admire:

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"Because much of the focus of Walter Lang’s memoir “Tattoo” is on the author’s career in the U.S. Army, it may be fitting to approach it on more than one front: one being what Lang’s experience and adventures in arms tell us about the nature and evolution of U.S. military life during the period he served and also to some degree about the nature and evolution of American society during that period; another being what kind of man has lived this challenging and far from unimportant life; and finally the tale of how this man came to be the man who has lived the life he has. Let me begin, though, in a rather oblique manner but one that I hope it will seen to have point — by quoting the following passage from Rabbi Chaim Jachter:

“Throughout [their] history the Jews have received many appellations.  Among the more famous[is found] in  Exodus chapter 32 … one that evokes mixed feelings….

“The source of the appellation is Hashem himself, who says the following to Moses in the terrible aftermath of the Golden Calf: ‘I have seen [observed] this people, and behold they are a stiff-necked people.  Now leave Me alone and My wrath will blaze against them and destroy them.  I will then make you into a great nation.…” 

“One chapter later, Hashem informs Moses that He will be now be sending a proxy, an angel, to watch over the Israelites instead of leading them directly.  In explaining why, Hashem invokes this notion again:  ‘I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites… [You will then] enter a land flowing with milk and honey… for I will not go up among you, for you are a stiff-necked people and I may destroy you along the way.’”

[And yet] in defending the people Israel, Moses uses the very same notion as the essential rationale for their salvation: “If I have found favor in Your eyes my Master, let my Master go among us, because (ki) it is a stiff-necked people.  Pardon our iniquity and our sins, and take us as Your own possession.’” In this case, Moses employs the term “stiff-necked” as a reason to receive God’s mercy.  How could Moses be using this term to win Hashem’s favor?

Ibn Ezra presents two possible solutions to the problem.  First, he cites the opinion of Rabbi Mereinos who explains that the word ki in our context (“ki it is a stiff-necked people”) should be rendered as even though it is a stiff-necked people… Thus Moses is asking Hashem to find the Israelites deserving of mercy despite their stubbornness.

Opting for the standard usage of the word ki as a causative, Ibn Ezra explains that what Moses means is “because (I admit) that we have sinned, that we are a stiff-necked nation, therefore you should forgive.”

In a third interpretation Moses turns to God and says:  “Hashem, Your people do not want an agent.  We want the Divine Manager!”  Why?  The words of the Zohar Hadash explain: “For it is a stiff-necked people and You shall forgive” as meaning “The Jews are obstinate and wearying and when they sin, the angel can only do judgment and not forgiveness, but You are merciful and gracious. Therefore when we sin the angel must punish us.  But You, Hashem, can fathom us in great depth and can find in our being stubborn the very building blocks of forgiveness.

A fourth approach is suggested by the Midrash:

There R. Yakim said: “Three are the undaunted: among beasts, it is the dog; among birds, it is the cock; and among the nations, it is Israel.  You think that ‘stiff-necked people’ is said disparagingly, but it is really in their praise.”

“Tattoo” is rightly subtitled “a memoir of becoming,” and we will return to that theme. But let me suggest another possible subtitle, “The man who knew too much.” 

One sees this, as well as a striking instance of Lang’s “stiff-necked” tendencies, in the Prologue, which takes place at a crucial juncture of the Iran-Iraq War — and to be sure we will find Lang at such crucial junctures more than once. In the presence of the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq but addressing the local CIA chief, who is also present, Lang says to him, with one assumes no little satisfaction, “I am here at the direction of the National Security Council and the Secretary of Defense to take charge of this mess.”

The rest of that enlightening encounter I leave to you to enjoy, but do take account of “take charge of this mess.” On the one hand, Lang is the man who knew too much — knows not only that this is a mess but also that the local CIA chief cannot acknowledge this fact, at least not in this setting. Further, as the rest of the encounter begins to make clear, Lang knows far more about this mess than the CIA chief thinks he does — he knows that the White House has betrayed the Iraqis, that Washington fears that Iran has the upper hand in the war but instead and in fact (as Lang accurately sees it)  the military crisis in the war has passed and Iran will not prevail. But also one detects the underlying satisfaction Lang feels at being able to deliver a justified stinging reprimand to an arrogant man in the wrong who had felt certain that he could push Lang around.

Thanksgiving in the Field - 1863 from "Death Piled Hard" reposted 2020

One of my pre-occupations is the cycle of novels that I wrote concerned with what I think I learned in life.  It is set in the American Civil War and called "Strike the Tent."  Why?  If I knew why perhaps I could have set it in some other time and place.  I have been writing at this for a long time. In one of the books, there is the story of a French professional soldier (John Balthazar), an officer with much service in Africa, who is sent to America to "observe" Lee's army for his government. Once here, he becomes ever more involved until he ends by being asked to form a provisional battalion of infantry from men nobody else knows what to do with. Line crossers, men from broken units, disciplinary problems, etc. He sets out to do that. In this passage we see his battalion going into Winter Quarters in November, 1863 south of Culpeper. Virginia. They have just made a long withdrawal to the south, away from the disastrous field of Rapahannock Station. Pat Lang

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"Throughout the army, soldiers started to construct their winter quarters. They had lived so long in the forest that they could build solid little houses of sticks and mud if they had a couple of weeks in which to work.  Small towns arose in the woods.  They filled up the forests that sloped away to the northwest from the foot of Pony Mountain. Smoke drifted in the wind, eddying and streaming, bringing an acrid bite of wood taste in the air. Oak and hickory, maple and poplar, the smoke brought the smell of their little communities so like those their ancestors had made in the beginning of their new life in America.  The men thought of Thanksgiving; some reached out beyond that to remember Christmas.  Balthazar watched his troops build their winter town. He had never seen soldiers do such a thing. In Europe, soldiers on campaign lived under canvas or in requisitioned houses.He thought their skill a marvelous thing, and told them so.

 

Security screening of manuscripts

It is the law in the United States that those who have had legal access to the secrets of the government must submit private manuscripts for removal of such secrets BEFORE they are published or even presented to a potential publisher.  Every department of government has an office charged with such work.

I know this process well because my memoir "Tattoo" has been in the hands of the appropriate Defense Department office for nigh on six months.  The book is long, and I was so unlucky as to have DoD shut down its auxiliary services during my wait.  I have thought of withdrawing it from screening but, surprisingly, the screeners tell me it has some worth for those who will come after. So, I will wait.

All this applies to John Bolton, a career State Department man whose adult life has been soaked in government secrets.  I first noticed Bolton as a glowering presence at briefings I gave to selected State Department people with regard to national command authority projects I was running.  His attitude was consistent.  If the idea was not his, it was simply wrong.

Bolton's "kiss and tell" book about Trump is IMO as much caused by wounded ego as a desire to make money.  He submitted the book for security review to DoD and the CIA.  Why not State?  Ah, Pompeo would tear it to pieces.  Bolton evidently grew impatient with the pace of clearance and decided to go ahead with publication without clearance

To do this is a felony.  The release of the book today completes the elements of proof for the crime.

Bolton should be arrested and charged with any of a number of possible crimes.  pl

In praise of "popular" books

In response to K. Harbaugh's inquiry I re-state my opinion that old, readable books written for us average folk can often be more valuable than books written for specialists in a given field:

Some books:

"The Story of Civilization" by Will and Ariel Durant (eight volumes)

All the books on Arab and Islamic history by Sir John Bagot Glubb

"The Crusades" by Sir Steven Runciman

"Caravan, the Story of the Middle East" by Carlton Coon

"Captain Sam Grant." (Loyd Lewis) "Grant tales Command." and "Grant Moves South" (Bruce Catton)

"The Second World War" by Winston Churchill

"A History of the English Speaking Peoples" by Winston Churchill

"The Civil War, a Narrative" by Shelby Foote

Suggestions and comments are welcome.  pl

Recommended Reading - “Special Forces Berlin: Clandestine Cold War Operations of the US Army’s Elite, 1956-1990” - TTG

“This book recognizes a unit, the members of which were among the most impactful of giants on whose shoulders the current special operators stand, whether in the SF Groups or in the most clandestine of our special operations “SMU” outfits. My generation of SF soldiers learned how to be effective in a denied area, using a complex mix of tradecraft, ingenuity, common sense, light infantry, and guerrilla warfare techniques in sabotage and subversion, with a nuance and deftness required to survive to accomplish our unconventional (UW) mission. Their exploits known to few by design, but long rumored can now be shared with the public and SOF professionals. It is fitting too that the unit be recognized and her members honored before time finishes with these great men.”

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This is an excerpt from the forward to “Special Forces Berlin: Clandestine Cold War Operations of the US Army’s Elite, 1956-1990” by James Stejskal. The forward was written by LTG Charles Cleveland, USA Retired. LTG Cleveland also said this, “With all the hype generated in recent years by far less discreet and less capable special units, it’s good to read about a unit who remained in the shadows until history and discretion allowed a public accounting.” Amen to that brother Cleveland, amen to that.

This book tells the story of a unit that even many in Special Forces only knew about in vague generalities. I came to know a lot of these men. One of my instructors at the SFOQC came from Berlin. I would meet him again during a Flintlock exercise in southern Germany. I knew James “Styk” Stejskal when I was an ODA commander. More accurately, I knew of him. He was in the team building next to mine at Fort Devens. We may have talked. I don’t remember. He probably never knew I existed. There was no reason for him to know some cheese-assed junior captain. Today he describes himself as a historian, author, conflict archeologist, photographer and veteran. I worked with and learned a great deal from several others while at Devens. My team’s SOP included cellular operations and clandestine communications. I still have a copy of the POI (program of instruction) for guerrilla operations in urbanized terrain (GOUT) we developed as well as a well worn and heavily annotated copy of "Total Resistance" by Major H. von Dach. 

I worked with former Det A soldiers and a lot of old friends from 10th Group when I was assigned to an Army SMU as a brand new Army MICECP (MI Civilian Excepted Career Program) case officer. Quite a few Det A soldiers gravitated towards this SMU for there was a lot of overlap in methods of operations. I offer the example of two of these soldiers to illustrate the caliber of men common to Special Forces and to Det A in particular. 

One of the pair who we referred to as “the Germans” was a Prussian by birth. His manner was intimidating to outsiders, although I found him to warm and even funny at times. I could easily see him as a leader of colonial askaris under von Lettow-Vorbeck in German East Africa. Among his exploits, he gathered the vehicles in a Teheran warehouse to be used to support the hostage rescue mission had Operation Eagle Claw succeeded in 1980. He moved in and out of Teheran as a singleton covered as a German businessman. He is also a tropical fish breeder. I don’t mean he has a nice aquarium setup. He has a room lined with aquariums raising generations of notoriously difficult to breed species. He generously offered tons of advice to my older son when he expressed an interest in raising tropical fish. When we left for Germany my son gave “the Prussian” his three comical Kuhli Loaches. When we returned from Germany five years later, those Loaches were still going strong. BTW, my ops officer in Germany was also a Det A alumni and a veteran of Desert One.

During my second tour with this SMU, I worked with a fellow Lithuanian-American named Pranas Rimeikis. His exploits surveilling and penetrating an East European criminal enterprise in support of a German SEK operation are described in Stejskal’s book. We worked in the training troop of the SMU. During a reception we held for our students, I spent time chatting up Pranas’ Lithuanian-born father. Pranas later smilingly confronted me, “What are you doing? Recruiting my old man?” Pranas went on to become a two term mayor of Culpeper, Virginia and is now finishing up a term on the city council. My time with Pranas confirmed that there must be a gene for disdain for authority in all of Lithuanian descent. I found a short video interview from Pranas’ time as mayor. I think his personality comes through as does his identity as the son of an immigrant. I can relate to that. 

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My hope is that this book, along with the exploits of the men of Det A, inspires a revival in a set of skills that I feel has atrophied with the very public rise of the special operators of JSOC and our experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. As Jim Stejskal mentioned in a talk he gave at the Daniel Morgan Academy Graduate School of National Security, our experience with the Lodge Act soldiers of Det A should inspire our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. LTG Cleveland recognized the need in a 2014 interview. “First, we needed to address a key capability gap for “high-end” UW. By “high-end” UW we mean the full range of conditions for unconventional warfare, such as where resistance movements are just beginning and operating clandestinely themselves, the occupying power is highly capable, limited safe havens exist, and/or where the degree of risk is exceptionally high.” ARSOF 2022 was published at that time as a roadmap for future SOF development. That publication mentions the 4th battalion to be organized and trained in each SF Group to specifically address this capability gap. I have no idea if this plan ever came to fruition with the establishment of the 4th battalions. I have my doubts. It’s a damned hard thing to do and these people don't grow on trees.

But then, how does this capability fit in with the humble foreign policy that many of us want?

TTG

http://www.detachment-a.org/detachment-a-clandestine-special-forces-missions-from-berlin-to-iran/

http://www.soc.mil/Assorted%20Pages/ARSOF2022_vFINAL.pdf

 

Netanyahu does not seem to fear Russia.

 

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised that Tel Aviv will continue to attack Hezbollah facilities, located in Syria. The statement was made just a day after Israel carried out airstrikes on the territory of the Arab country and admitted this fact.

On Friday, the Israeli Air Force entered the Syrian airspace and struck several targets near Palmyra city. The Syrian government claims that one of the Israeli fighter jets was shot down, while another one was damaged, as Syrian air defense troops launched several anti-aircraft missiles against the warplanes.

On Saturday, the Israeli Prime Minister said that the Friday’s airstrikes targeted a Hezbollah convoy, which transported weapons for the resistance movement.

“When we identify attempts to transfer advanced weapons to Hezbollah and we have intelligence and it is operationally feasible, we act to prevent it,” Netanyahu said. “That’s how it was yesterday and that’s how we shall continue to act.”

Meanwhile, on Friday, Israeli ambassador to Moscow Gary Koren was summoned by the Russian Foreign Ministry for clarification of circumstances of the airstrikes of the Israeli Air Force in Syria. The move was taken just a day after Israeli envoy presented his credentials to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Syrian military called the latest Israeli airstrikes “a desperate attempt” to support the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, operating on the territory of the Arab country. According to a statement of the Syrian Army, the Israeli attack actually was aimed at positions of government troops in order to weaken their forces, fighting against the IS in the region.

Reportedly, Syrian military have strengthened their presence in the southwestern part of Quneitra province, including the Golan Heights region, after the Israeli airstrikes.

Earlier, it was reported that Israel provided medical treatment for Syrian militants and terrorists, transporting them to the Israeli-occupied Syrian territory of Golan Heights. Last September, an Israeli lawmaker said that the Israeli side was also directly aiding the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (previously known as the al-Nusra Front) terrorist group in the Golan Heights.

Since 1967, Damascus and Tel Aviv have been technically at war due to Israel’s continued occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights."  southfront

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Well, pilgrims, it does not seem that the "subtle message" made much of an impression in the land of Zion.  I said they are hard headed and they are.  They don't believe in reciprocity.  Whatever is yours is theirs and whatever is theirs is theirs.

Back in the day when I was chief of liaison to IDF General Staff intelligence I repeatedly tried to get them to give us some worthless piece of information that I had selected for that purpose and they NEVER came through.  On one occasion they said they knew that what I had asked for was unimportant but that they did not want to establish a precedent.  I would have cut them off as a lesson but if I had (or could have) they would have gone to CIA who IMO would have been glad to screw DIA by giving them what they wanted. 

So, the strike in question was near Palmyra far from the Lebanese border.   This supports the belief that the strike was intended to assist IS which is now hard pressed by R+6 forces in that area.  pl 

https://southfront.org/israeli-prime-minister-promises-continue-hitting-hezbollah-in-syria/

Sam Stein, little Donny Deutsch and the wrath of Joe Scarborough

This segment from this morning's show is just too good to pass up.

I must say that Mika is quite fetching in her new role as Joe's Consort, Morganatic wife, Jarriya or whatever it is that they think their relationship may be.

I understand the British Borg has frozen RT's bank accounts in London and a "government entity" has attempted to block Assange's communications presumably to halt the flow.  Well, good luck boys and girls that horse left the barn some time ago and is now living well in a number of places.  pl  

http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/what-latest-wikileaks-dump-shows-about-clinton-787344451892

Things Nautical - TTG

Earlier this week, I returned from another bout of being an amateur housewright at the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers. As always, it was a pleasant and vigorous week marked by a near total news blackout. I listen only to an AM oldies station from Albany. It’s a nice chance to listen to a little Sinatra and read a good book. Since some other soul beat me to our local library’s copy of Farley Mowat’s “The Boat Who Wouldn't Float,” I settled for a Project Gutenberg EBook copy of “A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe on Rivers and Lakes of Europe” by John Macgregor. This is a fascinating account of an English gentleman’s 1865 journey across Belgium, France, Germany and Switzerland is a fifteen foot lapstrake sailing canoe.

John Macgregor is an interesting individual. He grew up as an Army Brat, British Army that is. For a time, he served in the London Scottish Rifle Volunteers. He won first prize in the regimental shooting competition at Wimbledon at least twice. He was a barrister at law, trained at Trinity College. He could write in classical Greek and Latin. He spoke French, but not German or Schwabisch. His accounts of interacting with those he met along the way are most amusing. He exuded an abundance, perhaps overabundance, of pride, confidence and pluck of what I would expect of an English gentleman explorer of the period to exude. He was a real life Peachy and Danny. “Not gods, Englishmen. The next best thing.”

Since I so enjoy reading our local newspaper, I have the circulation department hold my papers until I return from a trip. Then I can catch up on local happenings as well as the adventures of Beetle Bailey. Earlier this week, I sat on my deck with a mug of tea on a glorious morning and began reviewing my stack of papers. It was a joy to find an article by Rob Hedelt on the upcoming family boatbuilding week at the Deltaville Maritime Museum. I observed one of these events at the Alexandria Seaport Foundation. Ten or so families were working under a tent building Bevins skiffs out of precut lumber and plywood. Alexandria Seaport members provided assistance and guidance. At the end of the week, the families were rowing their skiffs on the Potomac.

This Deltaville event is run the same way. The biggest difference is that the families build Wright skiffs out of fir and cypress lumber, no plywood. These skiffs are things of beauty, almost museum pieces. Even though my sons are in their thirties, I wouldn’t mind getting the clan together to build one of these sweethearts.

TTG

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40238/40238-h/40238-h.htm

http://www.paddling.net/sameboat/archives/sameboat29.html

http://www.fredericksburg.com/news/local/columns/rob-hedelt-family-boatbuilding-week-draws-folks-from-all-over/article_66417ffe-11b5-5335-a285-3ad8bec83142.html

http://www.chesapeakeboating.net/Media/Feature-Stories/The-Wright-Stuff.aspx

"Hilaritas" by Mark Riebling

"I think there is an important book to be written on the stultifying effect of Protestantism on English Literature. This thought comes from a two-fisted reading of Chaucer and Spenser. In 1380 English Lit. is earthy and saucy, and in 1580 it is a sucked orange. There is a programmatic Anglican-Puritan deadness not only in Spenser but in Milton too. Shakespeare avoided this, I think, only because his poetry had to play live; he could not cram it full of anti-Popish allegory without losing that half or more of the audience who had been forcibly converted or were still closet Catholics. Later I find in Catholic or raised-Catholic writers (Waugh, Acton, Dryden, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, Pope, Joyce) something alive that for Protestants is just not there; something which enters English letters again, I think, only with the literary de-ghettoization of the Jews.

I would call this something "hilaritas." Usually translated as "cheerfulness," this Roman public virtue derives from an ancient Greek word, ilarotes, which means specifically the accepting attitude with which Socrates took the cup and drank the hemlock. It links to the idea of "Amor Fati," or love of fate. Strikingly, given the doctrine of predestination, this virtue is not on the list of Calvinist merits; and its absence, I think, contributes to the "haunted mind" of e. g. Hawthorne.

The problem may be broader, however, although still essentially religious (esthetic self-surveillance on both sides after the Great Schism): I'm not sure Italian or German literature have since surpassed the humanitas of Dante or Boccaccio or Wolfram von Eschenbach. As for French Literature, I defer to Aaron Haspel, John Faithful Hamer and Jean-Louis Rheault... but until the French lost their "Roman" beliefs around the time of Sartre and Camus (say up through Rostand) they seem to me to have kept their hilaritas."  Mark Riebling

A Mark Riebling interview.

 

Mark is a distinguished historian of the intelligence world.  He has a new book on Pius XII.  "Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War Against Hitler"pl

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/rethinking-hitlers-pope

 

Data Request

Having finished my memoir, "Tattoo,"  (now being copy edited) I have begun work on another novel, this one to be set in the Egypt of Khedive Ismail in the 1870s.   

I have amassed books, journal articles and such like that on the period but I would ask one and all to send me links or docs pertaining to such things as:

- Possible names for women of the khedival family.  I will not use any actual names.  The family is still extant.

- Maps and photos of Cairo at that time

- Information on the Egyptian (Ottoman) Army of the time (ranks, uniforms, etc."

pl

Obama and "The Bear"

Obama:  "...  for far too long, for decades, you have a situation in which too many communities don’t have a relationship of trust with the police. If you just have a handful of police who are not doing the right thing, that makes the job tougher for all the other police officers out there. It creates an environment in the community where they feel as if rather than being protected and served, they’re the targets of arbitrary arrests or stops. And so our job has to be to rebuild trust, and we put forward a task force made up of police officers, but also young activists who had been protesting in Ferguson or here in New York. They came up with some terrific recommendations about collecting data on what happens when there’s a shooting involving police, what are we doing in terms of things like body cameras. And so there are some very practical, concrete things we can do to make the system work better.

But…this is not just a policing problem. What you have are pockets of poverty, lack of opportunity, lack of education all across this country. Too often we ignore those pockets until something happens. Then we act surprised and the TV cameras come in. Essentially, we put the police officers in a really tough spot where we say to them, “Just contain the problem.” If young African-American men are being shot but it’s not effecting us, we’ll just kinda paper that over. Part of the message that I’m trying do deliver is, look, you’ve got a crisis in these communities that’s been going on for years where too many young people don’t have hope, they don’t see opportunity, there aren’t enough jobs. We’ve created an approach to drugs that leads to mass incarcerations. So then you have no father figures in these communities. When those folks get out of prison, they can’t get a job because they’ve got a felony record. 

Today, part of what I did in New York was announce some additional initiatives around what we’re calling My Brother’s Keeper. How can we send a message to young people of color and minorities, particularly young men, saying your lives do matter, we do care about you, but we’re gonna invest in you before you have problems with the police, before there’s the kind of crisis we see in Baltimore. We’re gonna make sure you’ve got early childhood education, we’re gonna make sure you’ve got an opportunity to graduate and go to college and you’ve got mentors and apprenticeships. That kind of sustained effort I think is what we have to see in this country. Not just the episodic spasms of interest when something tragic happens. 

Letterman asked: ...Is racism a factor? The factor? A residual factor?

A residual factor, but also a buildup of our history. We can’t ignore that. Look, if you have slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination that built up over time, even if our society has made extraordinary strides—and I’m a testament to that, and my kids and your kids are growing up in an America where the attitudes of the next generation make you hopeful because I think they genuinely try to judge people on the basis of character. But it’s built up over time. If you have 100 years in which certain communities can only live in certain places, or the men in those communities can only get menial labor, or they can’t start a particular trade because it’s closed to them. Or they try to buy a house or a car and it’s more expensive. Over time that builds up. That results in communities where the kids who are born there are not going to have as good of a shot. We don’t have to accuse everybody of racism today to acknowledge that that’s part of our past and if we want to get past this, then we’ve gotta make a little bit of extra effort.   Letterman Show 4 May 2014

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The basic message in what President Obama said last night on Letterman's show is that White people are altogether responsible for the situation of Blacks in places like Baltimore where they live in festering isolation and poverty and that Blacks are in no way responsible.  This is an old telling of the narrative of victimization.  I remember reading this narrative in the second half of Faulkner's "The Bear"  when I was 18.  This version of the story is filled with a great self pity. William Faulkner as a great artist was quite capable of empathic self-pity.  This narrative is also demeaning to the success story of all the Blacks and people of mixed race who have overcome the disadvantages heaped on them by their history in America.

IMO we now know what Obama is going to do with the rest of his life.  pl 

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-gave-one-most-important-talks-race-last-143414842.html

Podcast on the subject of "Strike The Tent" W. Patrick Lang

I was interviewed some time ago by the North Carolina Museum of History concerning the writing of my trilogy.

"The Confederate Secret Services, a conversation with W. Patrick Lang, novelist, retired U.S. Army colonel, and military intelligence consultant Patrick Lang discusses his two novels, The Butcher’s Cleaver and Death Piled Hard, both of which focus on Claude Devereux, a Virginia banker who is recruited by the Confederate secret service and placed in the office of Union secretary of war Edwin Stanton. Approximate run time: 24 minutes. Podcast " 

This podcast is highly recommended  pl

TTG’s Review of Jack Hanson’s Second Novel, “Forlorn Hope”

Jack Hanson just released the second volume of his science fiction series, Secret Files of the League of Silence. I found this second book entitled “Forlorn Hope” is even better than the first. I read a draft copy several months ago and passed along a few thoughts to the author. I will let some of my comments to him stand for my review.  

“I finished the draft you sent me earlier while in Half Moon, NY. It was great. The characters are developing well and the universe is becoming even more interesting. I'm particularly intrigued by the psychic aspects. I've always been fascinated by shamanism and concentrated in that area in my anthropological studies. Years ago I dabbled in remote viewing. Just to see if there was anything to it, I learned enough to prove to myself that there is definitely something to it. There's a lot out there we don't understand.”

“You asked if there was anything else I liked about the second book. Definitely. I found it stronger than the first. That may just be because it builds on the first one. In addition to your handling of psychic abilities, I enjoyed the care you took in developing the four young FOSsils. The third gen FOSsils may be combat veterans who have already acquired a full set of demons and doubts, but they’re still kids. Yeah, at my age that’s how I see soldiers this young. You let them act like kids, with all their innocence and awkwardness, when they were away from the battlefield. I appreciate that.” 

“The older FOSsils are of particular interest to me. I hope you develop some of them in addition to Clay in some of the future novels. They remind me of three MACVSOG one zeros that mentored me as a ROTC cadet and as a lieutenant in the 25th Infantry Div. One was a MOH holder. I learned far more from them about soldiering and leadership than from my formal military education. And all this was before I got to SF.”

“You created a very interesting and imaginative universe. I like the way you are slowly revealing it as the stories unfold. You give just enough detail for us to follow the story line. But you let us readers add some understanding from our own imaginations rather than being spoon fed an exhaustively detailed description. Very effective. I hope this is a long, long series and you are well rewarded for your efforts.”

Take a gander at the write up on Amazon. If that doesn’t peak your interest, I don’t know what will.

http://www.amazon.com/Forlorn-Secret-Files-League-Silence/dp/1505985749/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1421725282&sr=8-3&keywords=jack+hanson  

TTG 

Book Review by TTG

"My original intention was to read “Cry Havoc” over the course of a week as a relaxing bit of evening reading before drifting off to the land of Nod. Instead, I finished it in two sittings. I found it that exciting and engaging… and definitely not conducive to sleep. As you read this novel, you will find elements of such science fiction classics as “Dune” and “Starship Troopers.” But make no mistake, this is an original and uniquely imaginative world set largely at the Ganymede Military Academy
in the year 2410."  TTG

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2014/11/review-of-cry-havoc-by-jack-hanson-reviewed-by-ttg.html

New Athenaeum Post- NonFiction Showcase: Prison Journey, a Memoir by Brigadier FB Ali

Non-Fiction Showcase:  Prison Journey, A Memoir by Brigadier FB Ali

(includes chapter excerpts selected by the author)

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2014/02/non-fiction-showcase-prison-journey-a-memoir-by-brigadier-f-b-ali.html

New Athenaeum Post

Christmas Eve Radio Reading: Frederick Forsyth's "The Shepherd"

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2013/12/christmas-eve-radio-reading-frederick-forsyths-the-shepherd.html

New Athenaeum Post

A Yuletide Omnibus

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2013/12/a-yuletide-omnibus.html

Homer by Richard Sale

 

How others study and learn is a mystery to me.  Unfortunately, for me, I study and learn by fits and starts. 

When I read a book, and it is like watching a torch burn, watching it catch fire and watching as its knowledge lights another torch in turn. One day recently, I was reading an essay by the great Spanish philosopher, Ortega, Mediations on Hunting, and he made remarks about Polybius, a Greek historian writing about Rome, and I began to read him, and soon I was finishing The Iliad and began to read Greek plays that I haven’t read in 50 years.

Like everyone, I am often guilty of saying to myself that I read such and such a book in college or high school. Unfortunately, I often cannot remember what they said. Simply recalling titles is hardly praiseworthy, so when I began to study the Greeks again, I once again discovered that the Greeks are incredibly good!

Why? They are full of vital force. They don’t age. Their voices remain alive with strong and tumultuous life. They aren’t uselessly theatrical.  Homer, at the beginning of The Iliad plunges us immediately into a near-violent quarrel.  The king of the Greeks is Agamemnon, and while powerful, he is very self-willed and stubborn and ruinously touchy.  He is known as the “wide-ruling king,” but his pride overpowers his ability to reason fairly or clearly.  He is always insisting tediously that his is the greatest of all the Greeks.  They grow weary of  hearing it.

Here is the beginning.

"Gettysburg Trip" from "Death Piled Hard" by W. Patrick Lang

 

            "Edwin Stanton was not a generous man.  He hated anyone who might prove a rival for power and position, anyone.  He often worked late and alone brooding on the threats presented by wartime Washington.

            On this particular November morning, he sat in his 17^th St, office in the light of day, and reflected on the many slights offered to him.  He correctly believed that Washington was filled with his enemies.  The Confederate underground was not among his pre-occupations.  He reckoned that he and Lafayette Baker could deal with them straightforwardly.   No.  Edwin Stanton was more concerned with his rivals within the Lincoln Administration.  They are all jealous, he thought.  There are so many, so many from before the war.  They are waiting for a sign of vulnerability, a political weakness, a chance to make me look inept before the president.  Today he had something special to worry about.  He was not happy with Lincoln’s invitation to Devereux to accompany the official party to the cemetery dedication.  It was bad enough that so many officers of the regular army and navy had direct political access to the president without the hazard of this man who worked in Stanton’s own offices being given several days with Lincoln without benefit of Stanton’s supervision.  Who knew what sort of foolishness he might tell the president.  He looked out the grimy window of his office.  Leaves fell and rattled against the cold glass of late autumn.  A hopelessly lost cardinal landed on the sill and looked in.  It pecked the glass hoping for food, for anything.  He looked away.  The bird flew on.  It had been left behind as its kind flew south toward warmth and food.

            Stanton forced his attention back to the task at hand.  It was his way.  The need to survive and prosper was always foremost in his mind.  After all, he thought he is still a Virginian, even though a loyalist.   How much can you ever really trust these people? 
Innate caution made him thing of Devereux, the man, as opposed to Devereux the potential rival.   In civilian life he is a merchant banker.  What sort of schemes will he press the president to support either now or after the war?  After the war, I must think of “after the war.”

New Athenaeum Post

Veterans Day 2013- "When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality..."

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2013/11/veterans-day-2011.html

New Athenaeum Post

Halloween 2013: Ten Terrifying Tales

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2013/10/halloween-2013-ten-terrifying-tales.html

New Athenaeum Post

 

 

"How Santa Claus Came To Simpson's Bar"- Bret Harte

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2012/12/how-santa-claus-came-to-simpsons-bar-bret-harte.html

On Ole Tailgunner Joe...

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

MS2 in the comments to COL Lang's recent post about Marshall asked about where to go to get started reading about these things.  In regards to the Senator McCarthy material I highly recommend Oshinsky's biography entitled A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy.  I found it very easy to read, well researched, and the author, clearly dealing with a controversial subject, actually manages to show Senator McCarthy's humanity while clearly articulating how far off the rails he had gone.

The transcript for the Army/McCarthy Hearings can be found at this link.

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army. 

Social Media, Wonk Books, and the Death of the American Mind

Great books need not be written here. They would be useless now.  Literature is dead in America, killed by generations of children not trained to enjoy the written word and language for its own sake, killed by "journalism" that reduced argument and description to "sound bites," and given the coup de grace by the reduction of the American population to cretins who think that the glories and pain of life can be expressed by telegraphic messaging sent and received in tortured little snippets. 

No more will we see the likes of Melville, Hawthorne, Faulkner and all the rest of the storied writers' "gang" of old.  Why?  Simply put, there is no reading market for such beautifully polished expressions of the human spirit.  Margaret Mitchell today would not be able to find a publisher.  Remember her?

Books are still published, but they are not real literature.  The books that sell well today are; utilitarian "manuals" on things like cooking, gardening,  and computer science.  Then, there are "wonk books," (fodder for the hyper-ambitious so that they know what to agree with at meetings), celebrity biography, social theorizing and labored exposition for journalists' "insights" on history.

The human soul has been "growed" as a collective organic network in which the collected experience of humanity was recorded and expressed in the form of literary fiction by such masters as Hemingway and Conrad.  In their works the human experience found both narrative and  emotional expression as truth deeper than any textbook could hope to achieve.  This kind of teaching is nearly gone in America.  What is left is to be found in screen plays.  Let us hope that works such as "Inception," "Game of Thrones" or the "Zen" series will carry forward such shreds of human culture as may be needed.  Many universities and colleges that were once centers of learning are changing the emphasis in their English Departments to rhetoric rather than literature.  They believe that reading, writing and learning to do power point are more important than Mark Twain.

As a result of such starvation, the collective American mind is dying.  It is now reduced to subsistence on a diet of supposedly objective volumes of scholarly self admiration thinly disguised as "scientific" works.  Ask anyone you know who is under thirty to recount the history of the United States in broad terms.  Ask the same sort of person to describe in general terms what rough course (direction) an Israeli strike on Natanz would fly and what the appoximate distance might be.  Ask if there are US air bases in Iraq.  Ask.  Ask who were the first five presidents of the United States.  Ask who Dante Alleghieri might have been.  Ask.

The US Army is now trying to prepare itself for some other war in which understanding the locals might be important. Their major thought on the subject revolves around neurology and psychology.

Foreigners!  Save yourselves.  It's over here.  pl

 http://defense.aol.com/2012/09/24/army-brass-abuzz-about-brain-science-predictable-irrationality

 

“The Easy Road to War with Iran” by Dr. Christopher Bolan

In Thursday’s Washington Post David Ignatius discusses the results of a war game simulation conducted at the Brookings Institution.  He observes that “the scariest aspect of a U.S.-Iran war game…was the way each side miscalculated the other’s responses – and moved toward war even as the players thought they were choosing restrained options.” 

In reading Jeffrey Record's “A War It Was Always Going to Lose:  Why Japan Attacked American in 1941” (2011) I was struck that the enduring historical lessons he draws in examining this case also underscore the relative ease with which the US and Iran could now easily drift toward war with dire consequences for both sides.    For those interested, a shorter version of Record’s book was published in 2009 as a U.S. Army War College publication available here. 

Allow me to briefly extend the ‘Top Five’ of Record’s historical lessons (within quotation marks below) to the situation with Iran today:

1. “Fear and honor, ‘rational’ or not, can motivate as much as interest”:   A war between the US and Iran is almost certainly not in the objective rational interest of either party.  Iran’s relatively anemic military forces could not hope to stop the inevitable onslaught from a massive, sustained, and technologically superior US air and naval campaign.  Iranian nuclear, military, and any associated facilities (both economic and political) would lay in absolute ruins. 

New Athenaeum Post

 

 

 

 

 

New Labor Day post is up at The Athenaeum:

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2012/08/labor-day-2012.html

"A Meeting of Devils" By Basilisk

Strange things took place at the end of the Cold War. It was all the war many of us had ever known. This is a fiction story, but the millieu is real enough. 

Some of our leaders were the "rough men" from previous conflicts and they often questioned,  just as we did, whether the incessant meetings with former foes were real or fantasy.  This is an extract from a novel called "The Goodbye Kiss." Some here have read parts of it before. Perhaps someday you may read it all.

My thanks to our host for sharing many memories of the time and for being a good writing partner.

A Meeting of Devils

          For me, it was scutwork.

 

The end of the Cold War, at least my part of it, came with bewildering rapidity. It shouldn’t have been that way, I admit. Our jobs in West Berlin clearly involved understanding what was going on “Drüben.” It was German for “over there,” and that’s we called the East. Of course in Berlin it wasn’t just east in direction it was all around us.

Since the occupation zones were set up at the end of the war we had been smack in the middle of five Soviet armies. It was the new kind of normal. Politicians on the Potomac wailed and gnashed teeth about the dreaded “Fulda Gap,” and the threat of marauding Soviet Armor, but sitting literally inside the Group Soviet Forces, Germany we didn’t think about it all that much. We carried on spying as normal.

When Gorbachev came we began to hear unthinkable things. “Common European Home,” “Perestroiks,” even Maggie Thatcher opined that Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev was one with whom we could do business. When Ronald Reagan said “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” he ruined our business.

STT - a Review by Richard Sale

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2012/04/strike-the-tent-a-review-by-richard-sale.html

pl

"Death Piled Hard" Now Available.

The second novel in the "Strike The Tent" trilogy is now available for purchase at; iUniverse, Barnes and Noble and Amazon. The cover painting, "The Fifes and Drums" is by Keith Rocco.

The first volume, "The Butcher's Cleaver" is available from the same booksellers.

These books are available in electronic formats to include "Kindle' from major vendors. pl

Download Rosemont.Butcher's Cleaver-LO

http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/wgo/podcasts.html

Richard sale post on TA

See this new post on literature and the young.  Here is the link for those who cannot find the "Athenaeum" button to the right.

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2011/09/to-a-young-reader-.html

  pl

Podcast of Interview concerning my trilogy, "Strike the Tent"

 
My three volume novel of espionage set in the War Between the States was the subject of an interview with the North Carolina state museum.  Enjoy.  pl

http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/wgo/podcasts.html

#"The Butcher's Cleaver" at the Leesburg Flower Festival.

 
Today I was at the annual flower and garden festival in Leesburg, Virginia.  We try to go every year.  It is a wonderful occasion with the Old Town streets closed to vehicles and hundreds of vendors of garden goods and plants.  This gentlemen sells splendid birdhouses and garden tables of his own creation.  He had a copy of the great American novel, "The Butcher's Cleaver" with him which he asked me to sign.  I was pleased to  do so.  pl

 

"John Brown's Body" Stephen Vincent Benet

 

Someone sent me this link to a piece of Stephen Vincent Benet's book length poem, "John Brown's Body" that won a Pulitzer in 1928 if I remember correctly.  It is uneven.  The best parts IMO are the descriptions of the two peoples, the armies and the leaders.  The narrative that runs through it of some mythical mountaineer has always escaped me.  That is probably my fault.

This description of the "marble man" is exquisite.  pl 

http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/show/38925-Stephen-Vincent-Benet-Army-Of-Northern-Virginia

Faith and Flag

I was busy doing something in the wargame business for the government the last couple of days.  It was depressing as usual and unmentionable.

A Catholic prelate friend who once taught "The Novel" has been reading my books.  His point of view is of necessity different from that of the rest of us...

He says that one of my "unforgivable" sins in these books is that I have detached "faith and flag" from each other in a way that has become incomprehensible for many since the second world war.

In other words, my books are predicated on the idea that people on both sides of that war were good or bad depending on their actions rather than their adherence to one side or the other.

As soon as he said that to me I recognized the truth of his statement.  I often meet people who when exposed to my books say to me, "but, Lee was a traitor."  My usual response is, "a traitor to what?"  They look baffled, but mny question is intended to elicit an answer as to what Lee's position should have been.  pl

Notes for my Book Talk on "The Butcher's Cleaver" and "Death Piled Hard." - W. Patrick Lang

 
Jeff Shields, Stonewall Jackson's 2nd Corps headquarters officers mess steward.  He is wearing his UCV convention uniform in this picture.  He was a slave during the war.  His colleague, Jim Lewis, (mentioned in "The Butcher's Cleaver") was not.  I have a large collection of photographs of African-American Confederate veterans.  pl

Download Notes for 11 December Book Talk

 

Book Talk - 11 December 2009

I will be at Preston Library at VMI in Lexington, Virginia on Friday the 11th.  I am going to talk about my two novels, the process of writing them, levels of focus within the books, etc.  If you are in the area I am sure that the library would be glad to have you attend.  6:30 PM.  I'll bring a few books with me.

I guess the picture is from the '30s, the "Brother Rat" era.  The statue is one of the several extant copies of the Houdon "Washington."  pl

Kindle and Beyond

I think there is a reading revolution starting up and devices that enable portable reading of e-books are what the revolution is made of.

Statistics may prove me wrong when wielded by one of our readers, but my impression is that reading of actual physical books has been on the decline for a long time now.  The "tactile pleasure" of holding a book is great but it does not seem to have been enough to hold the formerly reading public.  On the other hand I have noticed that people are much more willing to read a finished book with covers, etc., than they are to read a manuscript that contains exactly the same words.  Go figure!

In any event, I have ensured that my two novels, "The Butcher's Cleaver," and "Death Piled Hard," (available next month) will be "kindlized" (Sony as well) from the start.  The intelligence book "Intelligence: The Human Factor" is not my property andI can't fix that.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/159113/ebooks_take_center_stage.html

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/159155/amazon_kindle_a_road_warriors_best_friend.html

The Suskind book and a possible bill of impeachment.

"A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.

Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.

The author also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official “that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.”

The letter’s existence has been reported before, and it had been written about as if it were genuine. It was passed in Baghdad to a reporter for The (London) Sunday Telegraph who wrote about it on the front page of Dec. 14, 2003, under the headline, “Terrorist behind September 11 strike ‘was trained by Saddam.’”  Politico

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suskind argues that this charge, if proven, would constitute a "High Crime."  I agree.  "Reasons of State" may be an excuse for such behavior in some polities, but, it is clear that it is not in the United States.

President Bush is called a liar and a law-breaker in this book.  The charge is that he, personally, ordered some documents forged and others ignored in order to lure the American people into support of a foreign war.  These are charges that make Bll Clinton's difficulties with his libido look rather trivial.

The charge is so serious that Bush deserves an opportunity to clear his name of the accusation.  Therefore, the House Judiciary Committee should meet to consider a bill of impeachment. Anything less will leave a stain on Bush that will follow his family name down through the ages.  pl

Note:  I know Ron Suskind fairly well and respect both him and what I have read of his work in the past.  I have not discussed this book with him although we have talked about the general direction of his work.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12308.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Suskind_Congress_wants_testimony_about_Iraq_0806.html

"Jackson Circle" Sidney O. Smith III

"Some at Sic Semper Tyrannis have asked about the successful rise of David Addington -- Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff and the leading apostle of the unitary executive theory. I’ll leave it to others to offer high octane legal insights, but Jane Mayer, in her excellent article “The Hidden Power”, goes into great detail when describing Addington’s approach. And, after reading her article, if someone asked me to choose one sentence to write on a chalkboard to sum up Addington and his weltanschauung, then I would offer the following: Addington doesn’t believe in the US Constitution.

What else does anyone really need to know? If you want an academic description, I suppose one could say that Addington’s intent to destroy the US Constitution is the source of his praxeology and thus drives all of his actions. One therefore can analyze his work based upon the assumption that he wants to decimate the US Constitution so as to create an imperial presidency. But, in simpler terms, this description of Addington simply sums up his "m.o.", or for those who believe he should face prosecution, his “mens rea”, that is, his “guilty state of mind”.

Of course, if you want to take it a step further and construct an argument against the views of Addington, then you must first decide the venue and audience. And because the tempo and motif of Sic Semper Tyrannis is one of The Butcher’s Cleaver and the Confederate Secret Services, I suggest tailoring such an argument with the specific intent of triggering a particular “collective memory” of anti-imperialism -- a collective memory long forgotten. By relying in part on the insight of Dr. Christine Helms that the "collective memory is a toolshed" that may lead to social change, the hope is that the revival of this specific collective memory will help end the days of Addington and Cheney as a political power. .."

Sidney O. Smith III

Download jackson_circle.pdf

America the Illiterate

Over the last couple pf years, I have been spending a lot of time teaching, perhaps "trying to teach" might be more adequate an expression.  I never liked teaching particularly.  I was twice named best classroom teacher of the year at West Point.  I never liked it particularly.  A pose?  You will make your own judgment.  Nevertheless, circumstance has caused me to return to this activity.  I need not explain the circumstance.

My recent exposure to adult American students associated with universities and the military makes me think that Susan Jacoby is largely correct in believing that we Americans are becoming more and more ignorant even as we become more and more proud of our ignorance. 

What passes for education these days is largely devoid of the kind of cultural depth and richness of knowledge of the human experience that I associate with real education, as opposed to vocational training in; marketing, communications, journalism, business administration, etc., ad nauseam....

And then there are the social "sciences."  These are ritualistic disciplines in which the devotees worship such gods as Weber, Durkheim and the like in pursuit of the ability to discern the esoteric meaning of data involving peoples the world across.  For the political "scientists" the quest always seem to be to explain why the apparent data does not reflect "inner reality."  Thus, for the social sciences trained geniuses of the Coalition Provisional Authority, it was perfectly clear that the Iraq visible to the naked eye was only masking the real Iraq that would emerge when the visible shell was smashed.

College students today do not read unless forced to do so.  They do not watch old movies.  They do not have intellectual bull sessions.  They are too busy learning vocational skills to do that.  In high school, the vast majority of them were too busy building their "resumes" to do any of those things.  Ah yes, their parents encouraged that.

Senior military officers in this country have largely become anti-intellectual people who cringe from the idea of independent thought and who, in the main, seek to intimidate their subordinates into accepting politically driven depictions of reality even when the evidence of their eyes shows that reality sent down from above is nonsense.  As an example of that, senior officers in Iraq continued through '05 to threaten the careers of subordinates who insisted that US forces faced a full blown insurgency.  The seniors should not be blamed too much.  They are too poorly informed to know better,

We have largely lost the ability in the US to see events in the context of human experience over the millennia.  That experience is called "history" and since "history" is one of the humanities, its name is dirt in America.  "Literature" for Americans is the trash on the best seller lists, Clancy, etc.

God help us.

You foreigners should not feel too good about this.  Look around you.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502901.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502898.html

"The Butcher's Cleaver" Now for Sale

Please visit the web site for my first novel "The Butcher's Cleaver."   It is now for sale on-line at Barnes & Noble, Amazon and iUniverse.com

pl

www.rosemontbooks.com

For sale at these lnks:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/104-0278800-4247125?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=The+Butcher%27s+cleaver&x=11&y=11

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?WRD=The+Butcher%27s+Cleaver&z=y

http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-47476-4

In the UK the book can be bought on-line at "Foyles" and at "WHSmith."  In Australia and New Zealand "Fishpond.com" carries the book.

A review of the book recently appeared in the Defense Intelligence Agency newspaper:

Download DIAReview.pdf

"Dead Certain" a review by Richard Wolffe

"Draper emerges with a treasure trove of detail and anecdotes, but he often doesn't delve -- or isn't allowed to delve -- into the deeper questions. Early in his book Dead Certain, he tells the story of Bush's failed bid for Congress in 1978. Against all the best advice, Bush decided to run against a conservative West Texas Democrat, Kent Hance. He lost badly, but not embarrassingly. Explaining his decision to Draper, he said, "You can't learn lessons by reading. Or at least I couldn't. I learned by doing. I knew it was an uphill struggle. But see, I've never had a fear of losing. I didn't like to lose. But having parents who give you unconditional love, I think it means I had the peace of mind to know that even with failure, there was love."  Wolffe reviewing "Dead Certain."

--------------------------------------------------------------

Wolffe is a very clever man.  He and Olberman "play" well together.  Wolffe remains essentially European in his manifested attitudes.  His casual dismissal of the behaviour of Royal Navy and Royal Marine people in Iranian captivity as "meaningless" had much about it that most Americans would not approve.  We would not tolerate that behavior in our forces.

Nevertheless, his review of this book points to a couple of interestin' thangs about Dubya.

Bush's insistence that he reads a lot and his statement that one can not learn from reading are mutually exclusive, I think.  I am reliant on a few things the Army taught me.  One of these was the Myers-Briggs personality indicator classification system.  This system has been useful to me in understanding people I meet and work with.  Dubya hates tests like that and also hates talk about it.  That is a typical reaction of several of the grous classified under the test.

I don't think he is lying in the ridiculous statement about "learning."  I think that he is (in MB terms) A "Sensory-Perceptive" (SP) type.  This groups typically does not learn much by reading and is quite capable of holding two mutually exclusive views at the same time.  About 50% of the American public belong to this broad group.  Look it up.

Then there is the matter of "unconditional love."  There is very little of that in the world.  Rational beings may SAY that they love without condition, but it is not usually true.  I suppose there are parents who will love a child who is a sadistic child molester and murderer, but they must be few.  In fact, only dogs love unconditionally, at least until they meet Michael Vick.

That kind of statement from Bush reveals how much he needs to be loved.  that probably points to something less than "unconditional love" in his past.  Perhaps that is why he needs to surround himself with adoring women.

This "biography" of Bush reinforces my belief that he will never, never, never give up in Iraq.  Never.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/06/AR2007090602376.html

There ought to  be a lot of room in this post for enraged comment by loving parents and defenders of Her Majesty' Forces.

"Fiasco," - A Book Review. W. Patrick Lang

Download fiascoa_book_review.doc

Download fiascoa_book_review.pdf

This review will appear in the next quartely number of "Middle East Policy."  I will post the URL for it when it appears.

Pat Lang

Book Review of "Cobra 2" and the IDA Report. Lang

Download lang_bkrv.pdf

The two books reviewed here bring to mind the remark of Crown Prince Rupprecht (Wittelsbach) of Bavaria who said of the British Expeditionary Force of 1914-15 that they were "an army of lions led by asses."

This will be in the Autumn number of "Middle East Policy" in the book review section and can be seen there or on their site in the last week of September.

http://www.mepc.org/journal_vol13/0609.asp

Pat Lang

"Arab Cultural Awareness" by TRADOC

This little book has recently been published by the US Army.

This is a "pocket" guide for junior soldiers.  It is intended that small groups of soldiers should use this as a reference and in conducting small unit (squad/platoon) training.

On the whole I think it is a useful primer on the Arabs and Muslims.  It contains a few "typos" and minor errors, but this is to be expected.  The guide is properly cautious about the generalizations that must be made to make a book like this useful.

Most importantly, it addresses these populations on the bases of their shared thought and traditions.  This is a major step forward for an army that prefers to think of people, all people, as inter-changeable "parts."

Green Berets, some psychological operations and some intelligence people rise above that kind of de-humanizing thought, but they are an exception in an army that all too often would rather deal with machines.

I congratulate Training and Doctrine Command on this project.

Pat Lang

Download arabculture.pdf

"The Apprentice" A Book Review

Download the_apprentice.doc

Download the_apprentice.pdf

And here for your literary improvement and daily dose of Kultur we present  Alan Farrell's review of Lewis Libby novel of esoteric crapola.

Pat Lang

"Mess-o-potamia" Homage to Jon Stewart

People keep asking me how to "fix" the Iraq mess.  Hey!  I didn't make it a mess.  Those that did should fix it.

Brings to mind the old saw about driving your car off a cliff.  "Once you've done it you might as well enjoy the view on the way down."

I opted out of the policy business after Vietnam and refused to take jobs in that field from then on.  Policy makers are in the business of trying to create some new reality that they fancy.  Intelligence people are in the business of describing reality as it is or as they think it will come to be.

It is very important to keep these two functions separate because if you don't, then the policy guys start making decisions based on what it is they WANT TO SEE in support of their proposed new world.

Now, it is true that some intelligence people get "tapped" as individuals to do things for the government that are more in the nature of covert action, but that is not intelligence.  Intelligence is about information.

Since I am interested in information and teaching the teachable.  I offer the following two short pieces written by T.E. Lawrence, one on British occupied Mesopotamia and the other on the Revolt in the Desert.  There is also a picture of an art deco bronze plaque of him which my wife bought me in Buenos Aires of all places.

Pat Lang

Download a_report_on_mesopotamia_by_t.pdf

Download evolution_of_a_revolt.pdf 

Download Lawrenceinbronze.bmp 

Six of my Favorite Books

"Seven Pillars of Wisdom,"  T.E. Lawrence (preferably the 1922 version)

"A Soldier With the Arabs,"  Lieutenant General John Bagot Glubb  (He was the commander of the Jordanian Army for many years)

"The Last Valley.  Dien Bien Phu and the Defeat of the French in Viet Nam"  Martin Windrow  (Covers the whole French war and the players in depth.  The best on this subject)

"The Killer Angels"  Michael Shaara.  (A Novel - Pulitzer -Gettysburg)

"Lancelot"  Walker Percy  (A Novel by one of America's finest writers)

Pat Lang

"From the Holy Mountain"  William Dalrymple. (A Journey Among the People of a Dying Civilization)