Cleaning Out the Mailbox
Mail for the Czar today. Operative KH, who is in charge of our moon cratering project, writes in to clarify: Dread Czar, I believe the one who was supposed to be in the truck the LAPD was looking for was … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Vietnam
Way Back
Hey, you likely ask yourself, if you guys have been around so long, how come there are never any old pictures of yourselves? Actually, there are many! But our Royal Archivist is still rummaging through thousands of boxes in the … Continue reading →
Kennedy and Việt Nam
Island Dweller copies the Czar on some of his mail, which we in turn by our massive grace extend unto thee, dear reader: Your majesty: Esteemed Associate, still firmly ensconced like a tenacious polyp in the bowels of the government … Continue reading →
John Kerry: The Last Man to Die (Politically) For Obama’s Syria Mistake
Hey, this anti-war veteran posturing againstbaseless American military interventionsin far-flung lands to shore up a failing president looks kind of familiar, doesn’t he,Secretary Kerry? ‘Puter’s not fond of open-ended American military interventions in foreign countries, unless the interventions result from … Continue reading →
The Mandarin Watches Some TV….
Your Mandarin was watching the new mini-series Vietnam in HD on the History Channel last night. In addition, your Mandarin has also been watching the series Nazi Collaborators on the Military Channel. During both programs there was a commercial for … Continue reading →
Killing Osama
The last photo of Adm. Yamamoto, April 18th, 1943.He was dead by 10:00 a.m. Tokyo time. R.I.P. From the depths of interstellar space, the unusually pensive Klingon, Da’rod of Q’onos, writes in: Most Puissant and Beneficent Volgi, I have been … Continue reading →
Who Really Lost Vietnam
Dennis Prager as an outstanding editorial on who really lost Việt Nam for the Vietnamese. He suggests the Communists did, and his rationale is correct. But he takes his argument an interesting step further and compares how the American left … Continue reading →
Domino Theory
As the situation worsens in Egypt, you continue to hear references to The Domino Theory. First Tunisia, now Egypt, and protests (or attempts at protests) are taking place in Jordan, Yemen, and Syria. The success of one protest emboldens the … Continue reading →
Egypt: Some Possible Scenarios
There is a joke once popular among Egyptians and more appropriate now than ever. Roughly translated, it goes like this: “The Angel of Death comes to Ḥusnī Mubārak, and says ‘It is time. Say good bye to the Egyptian people.’ … Continue reading →
Ngô Đình Diệm, meet Hamid Karzai?
We’ve spent most of the past several years listening to liberals nattering away about how first Iraq and now Afghanistan is the new Vietnam. But finally, those making such arguments in the hope of undermining our efforts to resist the … Continue reading →
Breaking News: Vietnam is Still Communist
What’s this? A Vietnames Buddhist monk complains that the country is not giving them religious freedom? Dude. You live in a communist country. This rates about a 1 on the Czar’s shock factor scale. Feel free to ask a Polish … Continue reading →
Robert McNamara, RIP
Love him, hate him, or both, Robert McNamara died Monday at the age of 93. His life was interesting enough, but he had a massive effect on world history, from American foreign policy as well as how America and the … Continue reading →
Afghanistan: Not a winning strategy.
PR trumps war-fighting? Hearts and minds are very important, but killing the enemy is more important. Plus, you make this call, and immediately every Taliban stronghold will be surrounded by a ring of hostages. They’ll strap babies to their chests … Continue reading →
Re: Việt Nam
The kind words of the Czar notwithstanding, your Volgi is decidedly not a historian of Southeast Asia or the Vietnam War. And he’s in agreement with the Czar’s argument, in general, though he’d quibble with the word futile, given that … Continue reading →
Re: Việt Nam
The Czar would like to compliment and complement your Volgi’s superb post that clarifies some key points in your Czar’s concern about using buzzwords in lieu of warfighting. The Czar does not maintain that the war was unwinnable nor that … Continue reading →
Việt Nam
While heartily endorsing the Czar’s point here that technocratic methods lose wars, your Volgi will respectfully disagree with the Czar’s account of the Vietnam War, in that his readings seem to indicate that not only was the war winnable—Gen. Creighton … Continue reading →
Systems Failure
In reading over POTUS Obama’s plan for Afghanistan, the Czar was disturbed by this quote: But the plan also for the first time sets benchmarks—or, as the president preferred to call them, “metrics”—for US involvement in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, … Continue reading →
Taiwan slipping away?
Gordon Chang relates that RAND says the Chinese are very close to absolute air superiority in a potential Taiwan invasion. This is very bad news on a number of fronts. First, peace in East Asia has generally been stable due … Continue reading →