Four quick hits taking us from Vietnam to the Queen of England

My friend Bruce Kesler served with the Marines in Vietnam.  He urges people to read two recent books about Vietnam.

Oscar Wilde characterized foxhunting as “The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.”  It’s a perfect epigram that takes an elegant swipe at the British hunters, not the foxes they hunted.  I’m struggling to come up with something equally elegant about the Civil War in Syria, in which both sides are unspeakable and one side (the rebel side that Obama has announced we’re now aiding) advertising itself as practicing cannibalism.  There are no good guys in this war, there are only bad guys with hapless civilians in the middle.  I am not sanguine about Obama’s delayed decision to get the U.S. involved.  If he’d acted two years ago, he might have enabled a fairly bloodless transition from Bashir al Assad to something resembling moderation in Syria.  By waiting two years, he’s allowed Iran to get firmly entrenched on Assad’s behalf, and al Qaeda to get firmly entrenched on the rebels’ behalf.  So, as in Libya, Americans are aiding al Qaeda.  The Benghazi attack shows just how well that turned out.  Anyway, if you want to know a bit more about the players in that mess (which either be a slowly bleeding quagmire or a true Armageddon) here’s some info.  The one thing I can predict with absolute certainty is that this will not end well for America.

A friend of mine who blogs at “To Put it Bluntly” has an interesting post about money created and money taken.

Good for the Queen of England:  she made as pointed a statement as is possible for a non-political head of state to make when she put on her birthday awards list a Jewish academic who has been fighting against the anti-zionism and antisemitism in Britain’s universities.