Mindless Land Transfers in History - Italian Edition

 Jealousy is one of the most corrosive acts of the human heart; it can have destructive personal affects and sometimes national affects.  Throughout history there have been many border and land changes.  Some have been just plain bizarre.  In 1860 the Italians, eager to unify the Papal States and their numerous city states, which had warred with each other for centuries decided to surrender the Province of Savoy and the city of  Nizza (Nice) to France in return for support of their unification.  The area of Nice was in the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia at the time.  Italian unification was led by Giuseppe Garibaldi and his long time adversary, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour.  Click here to see a short summary of the history of Nice.  One of the main reasons that the Italians decided to cede Nice to the French, was Cavour's jealousy of Garibaldi, the hero of Italian unification, and a native of Nice.  The Italians also wanted  French help  in holding back any challenge from the Austrians.  

Garibaldi had spent most of his life fighting wars of freedom and unification in South America, specifically Brazil and Uruguay.  His most famous battle, however,  was in Rome in 1849, where he was defeated by a large, 30,000 strong, French Army who had come to help Pope Pius IX retain the Papal States, against his people's will.  The Pope was the absolute ruler and dictator of the Papal States.  Garibaldi had a small band of seasoned fighters that he brought from Uruguay and a rag tag army of Roman volunteers.  The French army had all the heavy weapons; Garibaldi had none.  Garibaldi's men fought a brave, ferocious, battle but it was a lost cause. Their fate could be compared to the famous Greek Last Stand of the 300 at Thermopylae in 480BC. The French bombed Rome with impunity and killed over 2,000 Romans in the process.   Despite the pleas of the French not to punish the rebels, Pius IX executed many people who had fought with Garibaldi, or supported the rebel cause.  There were no trials or verification of what they were accused of; many were publicly  executed in such places as Piazza del Popolo in Rome.  The French Army remained in Rome to help the pope rule until 1870 when they had to return to France to fight the German invasion of France in what became known as the Franco-Prussian war of 1870; a war France lost. The French Army posted signs all over Rome stating that anyone caught with a weapon would be summarily executed.

Garibaldi was the best military commander of his day.  He was enormously  charismatic and popular wherever he went.  After the end of the war in Uruguay, over 1,000 of his fighters followed him to Rome to help the people establish a free Italian state.   they all willingly gave their lives for Garibaldi.  One of those 1,000 was a brilliant black former Uruguayan slave and  warrior, known as Andrea il Moro, Andrea Aguyar.  This fierce fighter brought with him a tactic not known in Europe, the ability to lasso enemy cavalry, pull them off their horse and eliminate them.  Aguyar was killed on the last day of the battle for Rome; his last words were “Long live the Republics of America and Rome!” Aguyar, was one of the best soldiers of his day.  Garibaldi had appointed him as his aid-de-camp and his right hand man.  Among the truly remarkable warriors of all time, Aguyar is certainly one. Click here for a short story about Aguyar. Garibaldi got an equestrian statue in Janiculum Hill in Rome, but not Aguyar; a shame.  

One of the best biography of Garibaldi is a 1974 book by Jasper Ridley called "Garibaldi."  For a fine history of Garibaldi's 1849 Battle of Rome, see a very fine book by Tim Parks called "The Hero's Way," published in 2021 by W.W. Norton & Company.  This book brilliantly details the battle for Rome and the legendary retreat that followed.

To this day, we have regions in many countries who want to separate and become independent, such as Catalonia and the Basque Country in Spain.  The Italian city-states are another example from past history.  This experiment in local independence has been a complete failure throughout history, yet many still desire it.  

A second bizarre land transfer, again, involves France and Italy with the transfer of Corsica to France in 1769.  Corsica had been a part of the City state of Genoa. The Genoese sold the island to France two years earlier. Again, France got the better part of it. 

At the end of World War II, Italy, again, was forced to cede territory in the north eastern border with Slovenia and Croatia; the area known as Istria.  Italians living in this are were forced to abandon their property and vacate the land.  One such famous person who was one of the evacuees was the auto race driver, Mario Andretti.  Click here for a YouTube video documentary by Mario about how his family was forced to abandon their home in 1948.  The Italian government never paid these people for the lost property.  A very fine book, in Italian, called "Il Lungo Esodo" (2005) by Raoul Pupo, details the painful, and tragic events of this terrible exodus.  This territory was then given to the communist dictator and tyrant, Marshall Tito of Yugoslavia.  The Yugoslavs murdered many Italians in this area during this period.  This, without doubt, was the most disgraceful surrender of national territory.  Men have fought and died for far less than this.  This will live in infamy in Italian history. Viva Garibaldi.

The Winds of War

 The current Ukrainian success against a much stronger Russian military may or may not be surprising. The history of war is full of examples of small, outnumbered forces beating larger armies. Here are some examples:

The United States vs Great Britain in 1776 and 1812.  Britain was the greatest empire of the world at the time the United States declared their independence.  The British military was the number one power in the world.  Yet they were decisively beaten by a rag-tag American army made of of private citizens for the most part.  You could argue about what the cause of the British failure, but one reason for the American success was its leadership under George Washington.  In Roman times this proved to be the deciding factor in victories or defeats.  During the time of Julius Caesar, his leadership was so esteemed that whenever he appeared to his troops, they would turn the time of the battle.  In World War II the United States was blessed with strong, proficient leaders such as General George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower, or General Douglas MacArthur.  The same could be said of the German military with such competent leaders as Erwin Rommel, Herman Goering, Friedrich Paulus, who commanded the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, and others.

The French Indochina War of 1946-54.  The French had a formidable army.  The Vietnamese were a third world colonial country. The French had modern weapons and an Air Force and help from the United States.  Yet, the Vietnamese soundly defeated the French in the final decisive Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

Italy loses to Ethiopia - 1895-96.  A modern European power loses a war against tribesmen of a backward country like Ethiopia.  

In ancient history we have the example of Greece vs Persia.  The Greek city states were not all united; some even fought for the Persians. The Persians, at the time, had the largest and greatest empire of their day.  Then they got greedy:  the wanted to take Greece too. Two Persian invasions of Greece took place. The first was under King Darius in 492 BC.  It ended with a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC.  The Persians were so humiliated that Darius vowed revenge.  Revenge took place in the name of Darius's son Xerxes.  This second war took place from 480 BC to 479 BC, again, it ended in a humiliating Persian defeat. Some of the famous battles in this second war include the naval battle of Salamis, the Battle of Plataea and Thermopylae Pass. 

The Tyranny of Tyrants

Tyrannical regimes have very little crime.  Saddam Hussein had a way of dealing with criminals that democracies do not have:  they were summarily executed, whether guilty or not. Iraqi soccer players who did not win international tournaments were turned over to Saddam's sons who would torture them.  During Mussolini's tenure the Sicilian Mafia did not move a finger.  In North Korea, you can be executed at the whim of the tyrant there at the time.  Currently it's Rocket Man, aka, Kim Jung Un. In Communist China, if you criticize the tyrannical regime you're history.  Today the Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen is in prison for not being a supporter of the Chinese tyrants.  If you protest in Hong Kong, there is a good chance you'll end up dead or in prison for a long time.

Tyrants have come in history in many guises, Kings, dictators and tyrants of all stripes.  The English King, Henry VIII, not only ordered the execution of anyone who displeased him but his wives too. When Henry did not get what he wanted from the Catholic Church, he started his own church.  To this day, England follows that example.  In ancient history, for example, King Xerxes of the Persian Empire, decided to go to war against Greece because his wife wanted a Greek woman servant.  So King Xerxes mobilized hundreds of thousands of his troops to wage war on Greece, a war that he eventually lost at enormous costs.  Tyrants tend to get greedy.  Persia had one of the largest empires of all time in the 5th Century BC.  Their territory stretched from the entire Middle East, modern day Iran, to Egypt and as far as India.  Click here for a map of the Persian Empire of Xerxes. His empire was the greatest of his day. For a terrific history of this period there is a great new book, "The Harvest of War" by Stephen Kershaw.  Click here for a review of the book.

Nothing has changed.  Today we have tyrants such as Vladimir Putin of Russia, who, on his own accord, decided he wanted to reestablish the old Soviet Union, beginning with parts of Georgia and then followed by swallowing up the Crimea Peninsula and today, war on the entire country of Ukraine.  After less than a year of war it is estimated nearly 100,000 Russian soldiers have either been killed or wounded in battle, not to mention the loss of military equipment and the destruction of Ukraine.  A similar number of casualties for Ukraine.  All for the glory of one man.  During World War II Europe had an insane tyrant by the name of Adolf Hitler.  Just to satisfy his ego he invaded, conquered  and occupied most of Europe.  Not satisfied with that, he decided he wanted Russia too.  He lost.  On the way to doing all these misdeeds, he caused the death of about 50 million people.  German casualties in Russia alone amount to over three million soldiers.  The insanity goes on.  In the early 19th Century Napoleon of France had a big ego and wanted all of Europe and Russia too.  He waged war his entire life at the expense of the French solider. And the beat goes on. 

Tyrants in the World Stage

 The evil Russian tyrant, Vladimir Putin is losing the war in Ukraine.  He sent 150,000 of his countrymen to fight an evil and unjust war.  His glory at the cost of his soldiers.  I suppose that he thought that Ukrainians would just surrender at the sight of a Russian military column.  Bad mistake.  Did he not have any intelligence?  As of this date, it is estimated that 80,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded.  This is typical tyrannical insanity.  The tyrants wants glory so they will sacrifice their people to get it.  Let's look at historical tyrants:

Stalin.  Stalin was a crazed tyrant.  He killed as many of his own people as his enemy, the Nazis.  Let's take Ukraine, for example.  Over four million Ukrainians were starved to death by order of Stalin. Stalin wanted to get rid of private farms so he could replace them with his communist system. Click here for details.  During the Nazi invasion of Russia, Stalin sacrificed his own soldiers with mind boggling military orders to his commanders.  When a trained, experienced, Russian military commander would recommend a certain plan of defense, Stalin preferred inexperienced commanders with little experience, as long as they were loyal to him.  Any commander he saw as not loyal, whether in fact or not, he would either remove them or have them killed.  It is estimated that Stalin killed about 20 million of his own people.

Mussolini:  The Italian dictator had visions of a remake of the Roman Empire. The reality was that he did not have the means to do it under any conditions.  His military was in bad shape; they lacked the proper weapons, the training and the leaders.  Like Hitler, his insanity led him to declare war on the world, basically, when the truth was that he could not even beat a small country such as Greece.  To please Hitler, he sent 250,000 soldiers to Russia, without even the proper clothing, let alone the proper weapons.  Over half of these soldiers were killed, either in combat or by the fierce Russian weather.  The soldiers that managed to return, came back in such bad shape that he withheld showing them to the country.

Hitler.  I don't think I'm off by stating that Hitler was insane.  Let's take his Russian invasion for example. It is estimated that about three million of his soldiers perished in Russia.  He did not consider the size of Russia, the freezing winters nor the problems with supplying such a large army for so far away.  In the Siege of Stalingrad, Hitler refused to let his army retreat when it was clear they had no way of advancing nor surviving.  

We could go on and on with examples of the insanity of tyrants.  In our lifetime we now have Putin repeating Hitler's mistakes, we have the lunatic in North Korea, Rocked Man and the Chinese tyrants who want to flex their insane muscles.  The beat goes on.

Give Peace a Chance?

"Give Peace a Chance"  was an anti-war song by John Lennon recorded in 1969.  The  refrain is "All we are saying is give peace a chance."  Vietnam was the war. I was a participant in this war as an American soldier; I can understand the refrain.  Over 59,000 of my fellow soldiers gave their life in Vietnam for a misplaced political neurosis of the Washington politicians who really did not know what they were doing, starting with John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. The US Congress can be included here too.

We now have a war going on in Ukraine.  Many nations are appalled by the evil brought on the Ukrainian people and have provided weapons to Ukraine.  The United States and many others have imposed sanctions on the evil Russian regime led led by the tyrant Vladimir Putin. In the September 24, 2022 edition of the Wall Street Journal, there is a story about the Italian elections coming up this week.  One of the biggest controversies in Italian politics is should Italy provide weapons to Ukraine as well as sanctions on Russia.  The Italian people are divided; about half of the people do not favor sanctions, fearing economic retaliation by the Russians.   The leader of the right leaning party, La Lega, Matteo Salvini, a Putin supporter, is against sanctions and ignores the evil Putin has done in Ukraine. Some others on the right favor sanction and providing weapons.

Italian politicians not favoring sanction or poroviding weapons to Ukraine, repeat the same refrain, give peace a chance.  In their words, Italy should be mediating between the warring factions.  Now, either these people live in an alternative universe or they are denying reality.  So, you just call up Putin and talk him into ending his war, right?  Have they tried that?  If so, what result did they get?  We tried this type of diplomacy in 1938 with Hitler.  After he conquered half of Czechoslovakia, the Europeans entered into an "agreement" with Hitler providing that he not attack another country.  How did that work out?  When will they learn? Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former Russian oligarch and the richest Russian until he displeased Putin. His empire was seized by Putin and he spent 10 years in jail, says that Putin only understands force.  Diplomacy is useless.

Back to John Lennon's song "Give Peace a Chance."  So, what were the Ukrainians supposed to do when 150,000 Russian soldiers, their armored cars and ballistic missiles raining down on Ukraine?  Should they just play John Lennon's song to the approaching Russians and have a big sign saying "give peace a chance"?  As a former soldier who participated in a war, I agree that war is not the answer, but what do you do when attacked; just lay down?

The Italian politicians, and anyone else for that matter, who does not support sending weapons to Ukraine and supporting sanctions is cooperating with evil, I have just some questions for them: what will you do when the same evil comes to your back door? What will you do after the Russians conquer Ukraine and then go for the rest of the former Soviet Union?  Will you just sing "Give Peace a Chance"?  Will you not want others to help you?  Denying reality will not solve the problem.

Armenia: A Tortured Land, a Crucified People

 Armenia is under military attack, again by their neighbor, Azerbaijan.  Few other countries  have been tortured as much as Armenia has.  The Ottoman Turks conquered Armenia in the 15th Century and held it until the end of World War I, then the Soviet Union seized it.  Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Azerbaijanis have taken up the task of brutalizing Armenia with constant armed conflict.  All this while the world just looks on.  In Bob Dylan's classic song, Blowing in the Wind, he starts the song with this lament:  "How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man? How many seas must a white dove sail Before she sleeps in the sand?"

Most of the world recognizes the Turkish Armenian Genocide of 1915.  Turkey does not to this day. Fearing the anger of Turkey, a Nato ally, the United States was reluctant to recognize the genocide until October 2019.  It is a sad tale that the world knows very little of these tortured people.  Click here for a fine piece on the Armenian Genocide in a 2015 article in the magazine, First Things.  The genocide was repeated seven years later, in 1922, in the ancient city of Smyrna, now called Izmir. Two books have recently been published detailing what happened in Smyrna in 1922:  The Great Fire by Lou Ureneck and Paradise Lost by Giles Milton.  These two books are well researched and brilliantly written. Highly recommended reading.  

The Turks, led by the brilliant military commander, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who later became the father of modern Turkey, after routing Greek forces, attacked and destroyed Smyrna and murdered at least 200,000 Christians, among them, Greeks and Armenians.  They were particularly brutal in the massacre in Smyrna; the Greek Bishop of Smyrna, was tortured to death in front of a cheering crowd.  Turkish soldiers went on rampages, looting, raping and killing women at will; with no one stopping them.  People desperate to escape the carnage were trapped in the Smyrna harbor and not allowed to escape; many drowned in the bay trying to escape the fire that was coming toward them. European ships anchored in the bay refused to help them.  Click here for a related story. The two books mentioned earlier go into great detail on the brutality. At the end of the rampage they set the city of Smyrna on fire and burned it to the ground.

It is estimated that as many as 1.5 million Armenian Christians were murdered by the Ottoman Turks in the 1915 Armenian Genocide.  Historians believe that the Turks blamed their decline on the Christians, and that was a contributing factor in the genocide.  History shows that the Ottomans were in decline for the prior century.  The brutality of the Turks had no bounds; it was an example of man's inhumanity to man;  The two books mentioned earlier go into great detail on how Armenian Christians were marched into the desert on forced marches without food or water.  Many died of exhaustion and others were simply shot by soldiers along the way.

Religion is the glaring thread in this Armenian Genocide.  Muslims, in general, did not keep it a secret that their goal was to eliminate all the "infidels."  From the start, in the seventh century after Mohammed, the Ottomans made it their goal to conquer the world for Islam.  A quick perusal of history will back this up.  In the Middle Ages, we had the conquest of the Byzantine Empire with the fall of Constantinople in 1453, followed by many battles against the "infidels" such as the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571, and the two sieges of Vienna, Austria in 1529 and the last one in 1683.  These wars have never really finished.  Today we have different actors such as the 9/11 terrorists, Isis, al Qaeda and the like.  The wars continue.

Another common thread is the passivity of the rest of the world, namely, the Europeans.  After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, the eastern part of the Roman Empire continued under the name of the Byzantine Empire which lasted another thousand years.  During this last thousand years, the European Christian brothers watched and sat on their hands while the Byzantines were chewed up piece by piece.  Toward the end, prior to the fall of Constantinople, the Europeans denied the fervent pleas of their Byzantine brothers, preferring not to help.  One exception was a private military commander from Genoa, Giovanni Giustiniani, who collected a mercenary force of about 700 men and helped the Byzantines fight in the final battle for Constantinople in 1453.  After the fall of the Byzantines, the Ottomans went after the rest of Europe as pointed out earlier in the battles of Lepanto and the sieges of Vienna.  For the Europeans, it was see no evil, hear no evil. As the Spanish philosopher George Santayana once said, those who fail to learn from history are bound to repeat it.  And the beat goes on.

Monarchs, Emperors and Madmen

 Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain died this week.  Our TV coverage has been extensive, more than any other foreign dignitary that I can recall.  Britain has, perhaps, the best, most stable monarchy in the world. It is also true that Elizabeth was a great monarch; steady, smart and measured.  She deserved all the accolades she has received.  Under the British Parliament system, legislative power rests with it, not the monarch. This has been the case since the early 18th century.  

When the monarch ruled he/she had all the power.  The monarch was the king, the legislature and the judge.  He/she could order anyone to be killed at will, as did King Henry VIII.  I've always been fascinated at how a country, of say, 60 + million people can be ruled by one person as was the case prior to the parliamentary system.  The king/queen was selected by accident of being born to the right person and place.  No experience necessary.  No rationality need be demonstrated.  In many cases, as with Henry VIII, you could be insane and could be killed at will.  He could order your people to go to war, whether it was necessary or not; just on his/her whim.  Indeed a tyrant.  Tyrants are with us today.  Just look at China, North Korea, or Russia.  The people have no voice, only the tyrant.  The British corrected the sinking ship when they started the parliamentary ship.  Very few other countries has been able to throw off the tyrant.  For this reason, the British throne stands out as the best possible monarchy.  The rest of the world should take some lessons; few will ever do.

The Roman Empire started with a Republic, which was very successful until the time of Julius Caesar.  Most of the territory of the empire was already in place by the time the Emperors started, with Caesar Augustus who reigned from 27 BC to 14 AD.  Augustus was a good emperor but many who followed him were not.  Nero who was probably insane, as was Henry VIII of Britain, ended up burning Rome.  Other Roman emperors were equally bad.  These men were tyrants with total control.  They could order the murder of anyone who may be a threat to them, whether real or imagined.  

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century, the Eastern Roman Empire took over and lasted another thousand years.  The Byzantines, as they were called were ruled by emperors, or tyrants.  By the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 with the fall of Constantinople by the invading Turks, the empire was left with the city of Constantinople by itself.  Each emperor, ran it down.  Suffice it to say, emperors and tyrants do not have a successful history of rule.

Three Examples of Man's Inhumanity to Man

In the sad story of man's inhumanity to man, there are many examples.  For this piece I will concentrate on three such examples:  The Jewish holocaust of World War II and related Jewish oppression, the oppression of blacks in the United States and the outrageous incarceration of Japanese-Americansd by FDR in World War II.

There is no denying that Jews have been one of the most oppressed and brutulized people in our world.  You need look no farther than the Nazi holocaust, in which more than six million of our brothers and sisters were murdered simply for having a religion different than ours.  To put it in perspective, that would be the equivalent of, say, us rounding up all Baptists, or all Catholics in America and sending them to a death camp.  There can be no rationalization of what the Nazis did. The rational person, looking at history, would have to conclude that Jews were and are some of the best citizens any country can have.  They are self-reliant, law-abiding and successful people any country can have.  Look at industry, art and music.  There you will find that Jews are dominant.  Many have considered this as a reason to discriminate against them, but that would be just jealousy and envy.   There are so many examples.  The Spanish Inquisition of the 15th Century was one of them.  Many Jews were forced out of their homes and country just for being Jewish.  In my small little home town of Geraci Siculo, Sicily, it is estimated that during the Spanish Inquisition there were 53 Jewish households in a town of about 2,500 people.  They were all ordered deported by the Spanish authorities of the day.  The result being a loss for the country that ejected them. 

Blacks in the United States were legally discriminated against from the beginning of slavery until recent times.  If you were black you could not attend the same church, the same restaurant, the same hotel, the same bathroom, etc. This is akin to, say, doing the same to all people with red hair, or all people that are darker in skin color than you; its so preposterous that it takes your breath away.  Most societies have their own social ladder and  to a certain extent, discrimination.  So, in Italy, for example, the Sicilian is considered lower than the northerner.  This about as equal as saying that your neighbor across the street is lower than you because he/she livers across he street and all who live across the street are not as good as you. Insanity. In England, for example, if you're Catholic you can't be the Prime Minister to this day.  In the United States, up to 1960, if you're Catholic you could not be elected to high political office or belong to a certain country club.  In the academy, if you don't follow Darwinian evolution, you cannot teach there, to this day.  Now, I just heard the other day in the news that unless you have a "woke" world view you cannot apply to a college job.  I know, I know, that this sounds crazy; it is.  Click here for the story.

The third example is the incarceration of innocent Japanese-Americans in World War II by Franklin Roosevelt.  These were the country's best citizens; successful, law abiding, industrious and self sufficient.  How many Japanese Americans are in your state prisons?  Not that many.  How many Japanese Americans are on welfare?  Not that many.  Upon signing of Executive Order 9066, over 110,000 innocent Japanese Americans were rounded up like common criminals, and put in concentration camps. The camps were in the worst part of the country, such as Manzanar in in the cold/hot windy California desert.  I know, I know, relocation camps they called them.  Well that is akin to calling Guantanamo Prison in Cuba a nursery.  In July 2021  I visited Manzanar; the temperature was 105 and the wind so strong I could not stay outside of my car.  Heart Mountain in Wyoming was in the cold, freezing and unforgiving part of the state. Be sure to watch the video documentary of Heart Mountain by David Ono. Most, if not all, lost their house, their business and all they owned.  Very little was returned to them.  President Reagan in the 1980s, over 45 years later, apologized and gave the survivors $20,000 in compensation, a pittance to what most had lost.

The Evil of Religious Hate: Why Can't We Just Get Along?

 England and/or Britain ruled Ireland for over 700  years.  The Irish were their closest brothers in terms of culture or ethnicity.  The British, however, were the most brutal to their Irish brothers; ruling the island with an iron hand.  After the Reformation Penal laws were passed against Catholics in Ireland banning all forms of Catholic worship.  The British were so brutal to the Irish that in the 19th century they allowed the Potato famine.  Over one million Irish perished.  The British Empire, at the time the dominant world power, could have easily stopped the famine but chose to let their Irish brothers die instead.  This is one of the best examples of man's inhumanity to man.  King Henry VIII started this avalanche of hate.  If you study his history, it's not hard to figure out that he was probably clinically insane.  Killing his closest advisors just because he could, as he did to the brilliant Sir Thomas More; two of his wives and many others. Yet the British followed his insanity as if it was handed down by God.  Over 500 years after the crazy Henry VIII, his legacy lives on in Britain.  Catholics are still second class citizens.  Although the monarchy has been defanged, the sentiment started by Henry continues.

On our trip to Ireland in 2011 we had a terrific bus driver who told us Irish stories and played Irish music on our journey.  Some of the stories were so compelling that it brought many of us to tears, especially after hearing the song, such as "The Rose of Tralee."  Stories of people not being able to fish or find other sources of food.  Stories of priests risking their lives by saying Mass in hiding.  You keep asking the question, why?  Why were people so cruel to each other as the British to the Irish?  The short answer is religion.  But why must religion make you hate your brother?  This question has no short answer.  It is a sad tale of our human condition.  

So the question, for me, is why does Northern Ireland choose to stay with its oppressor of old and not join the free Irish state?  Again, religion comes to mind.  Catholics and Protestants.  Both Christians, both follow the same Bible so why the hate?  To this day the British still consider their Catholic brothers and sisters as some sort of enemy, or second class citizens.  When the British Prime Minister was Tony Blair - one of my favorite politicians of all time; he wanted to convert to Catholicism but had to wait to do it until he left office because you cannot be a Catholic and be the British Prime Minister.  Is this insane or what?  Up to 1960, if you were Catholic in the United States you were looked upon as not desirable to hold high office.  

Today we have the Muslim problem with 9/11 and the war on terrorism.  Even inside Islam you have inner struggles and hate among the Sunnis and the Shiites.  Why?  As someone suggested in the 1990s:  Can we just get along?  

A House Built on Sand: The fall of the Soviet Union

"But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."  Matthew 7:26

Just finished reading a fine book, "Collapse the Fall of the Soviet Union" by Vladislav M. Zubok, about the shocking collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.  I was a witness to this historic event.  I never imagined that a giant like the Soviet Union would fall in my lifetime.  I recall, in the 1960s, there was a hysteria about the US being attacked by the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons.  People worried about it on a daily basis.  At the suggestion of President Kennedy, many had underground shelters, preparing for it; it was a scary time.  The leader of the Soviet Union until 1964 was Nikita Khrushchev, the very evil looking and threatening person. He threatened to destroy the US from within.  Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis?  The Soviets were threatening.  They came within 90 miles of our shores. They were on the march.

As most events, they don't happen in a vacuum.  The Soviet Union was started after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the World War I.  It lasted 73 years.  The reasons are many and varied and it takes a book such as the one mentioned to explain it in detail.  Suffice it to say that Socialism and Communism have been proven to be a bankrupt system.  This book gives detailed analysis of how it developed.  Not only for the tyrannical rule and the suppression of its people but because basic economics just do not work well in such a system.  As the book describes, the communists had no idea how economics work.  The Soviet Union was a deck of cards waiting for the wind to blow them down.  

Many have speculated, and rightly so, in my view, that President Reagan and his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) had a lot to do with the fall of the Soviets; the author does not share this belief.  However, the seeds of its own destruction had been present since 1918.  By the mid 1980s the Soviet economy was in shambles.  They could not compete with the US; not militarily and certainly not economically. The Nobel laureate, and great American economist, Milton Friedman explains why a free market is ideal. Click here for this short answer (three minutes).  In short, free markets operate the best and are more efficient.  In order to have free markets you need freedom.  The Soviet Union had none of these, so the fall was very predictable.

The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, recognized that the Soviet Union was nearly bankrupt and could not stand on its own economically.  He was a committed communist and follower of Vladimir Lenin.  He proposed changing the Soviet economy into a free market economy.  He could not make it happen.  He proposed giving the 16 Soviet republics more autonomy and freedom.  Once he did this it opened a Pandora's box.  All the republics wanted to be free and independent.  He could not keep the genie in the bottle. Finally, in the fall of 1991 the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

With the Russian war on Ukraine that is currently going on, you get a glimpse of the Russian designs on Ukraine from before the fall of the Soviet Union.  The evil Vladimir Putin has been planning on the rape of Ukraine since he took power in 1998.  Written by a Russian insider, the book is a compelling story, with much drama and personal sacrifice by many who took part.  Highly recommended for history buffs.

No Pasaràn

 Shortly after the invasion of Ukraine by the Russians, I posted a comment on my Facebook page about the world needing to come to the aid of the Ukrainians.  A relative of mine from Italy posted a response to the effect that he did not believe that war was the answer and that the Russian people need to decide who leads them.  In other words, the usual hackneyed call of "war is not the answer."  Well, I agree, war is never the answer.  I participated in a war in Vietnam in the 1960s.  I know first hand what war is.  So what do you do when some hoodlums break into your house with guns with the intent of killing you and your family and taking your property?  Do you just say, I'm against war and violence?  What did the Europeans do when they were attacked by Adolf Hitler in World War II?  Do you not defend yourself?

In an interview with CNN and a piece in the Italian Daily newspaper, Corriere Della Sera, former Russian Oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, explains the mind set of Vladimir Putin, the insane tyrant of Russia.  Khodorkovsky explains that Putin only understands force, negotiations or diplomacy are useless. He knows Putin like no one else.  He was a close associate of his until he displeased him somehow.  He was arrested and spent 10 years in a Russian prison.  

Putin is not an isolated case.  Diplomacy was tried by the Europeans in 1938 with Hitler when the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain proclaimed "peace in our time" when they let him have part of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland.  Hitler invaded the rest of Europe shortly thereafter.  Was "war is not the answer" then? There are dozens of other examples.  In short, "war is not the answer" is a fool's response to violence.

Before Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte tried to conquer all of Europe for France.  Should the Europeans have responded with "war is not the answer?  There comes a time when mindless phrases such as "war is not the answer" cannot be used because it represents wishful thinking and not based on reality.

Land Transfers that Boggle the Mind

 

Among the most bizarre land transfers in history is the transfer, after World War II, of what was the capital of East Prussia, Konigsberg, which was renamed by Stalin to Kaliningrad after his good buddy, Kalinin.  Stalin, as you may know, went nuts in renaming cities after himself, such as Stalingrad, and other Communists of the Russian revolution, like Leningrad, after his hero, Vladimir Lenin.  

                                                

 

After Germany’s defeat in WW II, the Potsdam Conference, which included three of the victorious allies, Russia, UK and the United States, decided to give this city of about 500,000 to the Russians, giving in to a demand from Stalin.  What is more bizarre is that this city is not contiguous with Russia but wedged between Poland and Lithuania.  This gives Russia a huge advantage of stirring trouble there with Poland and the Baltic states.  This has recently come home to roost after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.  The Baltic states stopped having inter commerce transportation in and out of Kaliningrad.  This enraged the Russians who now threaten the Baltic States.  One of the threats, as reported in the Italian daily, Corriere Della Sera on 22 June 2022 was that Russia would declare the seceding of the Baltic states from the Soviet Union in 1991 as null and void.  Of course, this would obviously mean a Russian invasion of the states.  Play with fire and you’re sure to get burned, sooner or later.