Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Do you call that an empire?



Imperial Grunts by Robert Kaplan reviewed by Spengler

Refer below to Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos...

1 comment:

Christopher Blosser said...

Heh. [From Spengler:]

. . . Save one aborted Marine sally into Fallujah, Kaplan heard not a single 5.56 millimeter round fired in anger. His Special Forces hosts train feckless Colombian or Philippine soldiers, knowing that they will sell their ammunition to the enemy to supplement a $2 per day income. They fix children's teeth and build schools to win hearts and minds, recover the bodies of downed pilots and try to gather intelligence from local services. They want to fight regardless of risk to life and limb, but the Pentagon will not let them.

Fine journalist that he is, Kaplan faithfully records the boredom and frustration of American forces abroad, and has brought forth a boring and frustrating book. Conspiracy theorists who imagine that America pulls puppet-strings throughout the world should be made to read it as punishment.