Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. After dropping 6000 bombs in six days, the Israeli Air Force has now reached the staggering sum of at least 15,000 bombs dropped on densely populated areas of Gaza. The bomb tonnage is already equivalent to...
America, Land of Innocents
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. It’s depressingly true that no nations or peoples are immune from committing atrocities. History is filled with them. Atrocities, that is. Did Hamas commit atrocities, most notably on 10/7? Yes. Has Israel...
Israel Is ‘Daddy’ to the US Congress
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. I wrote a note to my representative in Congress, William Keating (D), who is the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. I expressed my opposition to massive Israeli bombing and massive U.S. aid...
Violence Never Settles Anything
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. The ongoing Israeli attacks against Gaza put me to mind of one of my favorite science fiction books as a teenager, Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. In that book, a military veteran and teacher of “history...
Nothing Screams Christian Values Like Massacres and Mass Weapons Sales
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Roughly half of President Biden’s recent budget request for more than $105 billion for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and border security is dedicated to weapons sales. Nothing screams Christian values like...
What Gaza Needs Now Is Mercy
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. A grim historical lesson taught by Thucydides, who wrote on the Peloponnesian War more than two millennia ago, is that the strong do what they will while the weak suffer what they must. Historically, the...
Israel, America, and Going ‘Massive’
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on America in 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld knew exactly what to do: “go massive.” Al Qaeda’s “shock and awe” attacks were an opportunity for the...
Israel, Gaza, and the Language of War
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Here’s a typical quick summary of the dire situation in Gaza from CNN Monday AM: The US is seeking to delay an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza amid calls to free more hostages held there by Hamas and allow...
Biden’s Trigger Treats for Ukraine and Israel
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. In an address to the nation from the Oval Office last night, President Biden promised more trigger treats* for Ukraine and Israel: at least $60 billion for Ukraine and at least $10 billion for Israel in an...
Nothing Screams Peace Like the Deployment of Warships
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. The U.S. approach to the crisis in Gaza is to send two aircraft carrier strike groups to the region. Because nothing screams peace like the deployment of warships. (Not to worry: it’s all about “deterrence”...


