Lest We Forget

I cannot let 9/11 go by unremarked.  It is the single event that defined my adult life.  While I knew no one who died that day, much of my life after was dedicated to the pursuit of those 19 hijackers’ fellow fanatics, and I have buried friends in the course of that war. It is a war that began long before any of us were born, and will likely continue.  It is unpopular to say that there is a war between Islam and the West.  Islam, truly devoted Islam, has been at war with all and sundry for 1300 years.  Are many Muslims not at war?  Of course.  Far more Muslims have died to crush ISIS than Americans.  But the historical record remains.  Even when we are at peace, sooner or later, that peace will end. The hijackers did not choose September the 11th at random.  It was not a date that simply came up in the course of planning and logistics.  Like all fanatics, they sought to make a deeper statement in their act of mass murder. September 11 was the day before the anniversary of the Battle of Vienna.  In 1683, the Ottoman Empire, then the Muslim Caliphate

Soldiers for Hire

Tim Lynch, over on Free Range International, which I’ve read off and on for years now, makes some points related to not only the recent kerfuffle over the Erik Prince/DynCorp proposal for privatizing the war in Afghanistan, but about professional soldiers in general.  It is a point that I’ve tried to make, in different ways, with both the American Praetorian series and Kill Yuan. Have you not heard about this? Of course not because it counters the legacy media narrative about so -called “mercenaries” while illustrating the uselessness of the United Nations in combating terrorism. Eeben Barrlow and his men are not mercenaries in any sense of the word. There is not a snow ball’s chance in hell that Joseph Kony or any other terrorist organization could hire them no matter how much money they paid. They are former military professionals who, although retired, remain military professionals willing to endure primitive conditions for months on end to teach their expertise to appropriate clientele. The concepts that Prince is talking about and that Feral Jundi and I have been writing about for years work. All of us know that because all of us have done it. The only question regarding the