War is Hell on Earth

 Man is a war-like being.  War has been a constant in human history.  I was born during World War II.  My father was in a war, and I was in a war (Vietnam 1968-69).  Since WW II, we’ve had the Korean War, 1950-53; the French Indochina War ending in 1954 with their defeat at Dien Bien Phu; the American Vietnam war of 1959 to 1975; the Falklands War between Argentina and Great Britain in 1981, Grenada, Somalia, the Gulf War of 1991, The Ukraine war of today, and on and on.  Now we have a new war between Israel and the Palestinians.  What other war have I missed? War makes men like animals, with no moral compass in some cases.  Most, if not all wars, have atrocities.  We had them in WW II and we had them in Vietnam., e.g. the My Lai massacre.  The Russians were, probably, the most prolific at atrocities.  They would execute their own soldiers if, for instance, they were captured and escaped.  Upon their return they were executed.  Russian soldiers in some cases were ordered to charge an enemy position in the open field; a sure death sentence.  If they refused they were killed by their commanders.  Most German prisoners did not survive to return home.  A German commission found that over three million German soldiers were taken prisoner in Russia; over one million died in captivity through 1950. 

I’ve just finished a book on the invasion of Sicily in July of 1943; “Sicily “43, the First Assault on Fortress Europe,” by James Holland. I was born there in November of the same year.  Atrocities were committed there by the US.  The book lists at least two cases where American soldiers killed surrendered Italian soldiers.  In one of those two cases, an American soldier, takes it upon himself to execute multiple surrendered Italian soldiers just because he was mad at the loss of fellow soldiers.  Many small towns were levelled by Allied troops, killing innocent civilians.  Hundreds of tons of bombs were dropped by allied troops.  In the town of Gangi, one town next to my home town, in today’s local web site called “Madonie Press,” the town commemorates eight innocent civilians who were killed as allied troops swept by the town.  This is a beautiful small agricultural hill town of less than eight thousand people.

 

One thing that made an impression on me when I arrived in Vietnam in May of 1968 as a US Army soldier, was how soldiers went about their business as if their moral compass was absent.  The sad fact is that, in most cases, soldiers who commit war crimes do not get punished.  The American soldier mentioned earlier in Sicily faced no punishment.  During the Japanese American concentration camps (I know, I know, people refer to them as “relocation camps”).  They were concentration camps.  US soldiers shot dead Japanese Americans at the Manzanar camp, of whom they feared were trying to escape the camp, or who had just gone mad from the harsh conditions.  I visited Manzanar, which is in the harsh California desert a few years ago in July.  The wind was so strong that I could not stay outside of my car.  The nearest town was about 100 miles away.  No one ever paid a price for such actions, as far as I know.  In one case, the murdered Japanese American’s family was charged for the cost of the bullet that killed him.  These stories are chronicled in the fine book called “Infamy: The shocking Story of the Japanese American Internment in World War II; by Richard Reeves (2015). Another fine book on this subject is called “The Eagles of Heart Mountain” by Bradford Pearson.  Heart Mountain was another concentration camp in Wyoming for Japanese Americans. For a fine documentary on Heart Mountain see this ABC TV Los Angeles documentary by David Ono. Click here to view it.

Why Celebrate Columbus Day

 Our modern culture is in a history destruction mood.  In the last couple of years statues of American heroes and important historical figures have been destroyed or removed.  One of the most reviled historical figures is Christopher Columbus.  Why is this so?  Most of the people who want him erased from history probably know next to nothing about him.  American heroes such as Thomas Jefferson or George Washington are being tarred and feathered by clueless people who are history illiterate.  They only know what is parroted by those who hate America.

In 1991 PBS broadcast a seven-hour documentary in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America.  A two-hour summary of this brilliantly done documentary is still available from Amazon, entitled "The Magnificent Voyage of Christopher Columbus." Click here to buy it.  You can also find this summary film on YouTube.  Click here to watch it.  You will learn more by watching this documentary than in taking a one-year course in a college class.  One of my favorite sayings is from the Spanish philosopher, George Santayana:  "Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it."  Most people who express any animosity toward Columbus could not answer one question about him.  It is true that he was reviled even during his lifetime.  After making four trips to the new world and bringing back treasures to Spain, his reward was to be put in chains and jailed. At his funeral no one from the Spanish government or any official attended. 

I often see young people wear a  Che Guevara T-shirt.  I would bet that if I asked any of these folks what they know about Che no one could tell me.  Che was a brutal killer.  If you look at the list of pieces I've done on this blog, I have one on Che with many facts about him.  To read this article on Che: click here.

In 2015 PBS aired a very nice documentary on the history of Italian-Americans in the early part of the 1900s.  Discrimination was out of control.  Even the Catholic Church discriminated against Italians.  You could not attend the same Mass as Anglos; you had to go in the church basement to worship.  Irish priests would refuse to marry an Irish-American to an Italian-American. Even in the 1960s, some law firms would not accept Italians or Jews in their practice.  Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, was one example.  The most celebrated American singer, Frank Sinatra, was frequently linked to organized crime figures.  Whether this was true or not, it was meant as a slam against him because of his ethnicity.  To view this documentary click here.

Parager University has just done a five-minute video on why we must celebrate Columbus.  Click here to watch it.

 

Jackie Robinson: A light on a Hill

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden." Mat 5:14

 I came to America at the age of 12.  One of the first American passions I quickly developed was the love of baseball.  Before I realized his greatness, I used to listen to the voice of the Dodgers, Vin Scully.  He is perhaps the reason I developed my baseball passion.  The year was 1958, the same year the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles from Brooklyn. No one could paint word pictures better than Vinny.  As an example, and before I learned all the baseball lingo, when Vin would say, "sharp grounder, through the hole, into left field." I thought there must be an actual hole in the infield.  I heard Vin tell stories of the great Dodgers Brooklyn teams of the late 40s and 50s. Within a short time I had a complete history of the  of the Brooklyn Dodgers.  I idealized the Brooklyn Dodgers and thought it was a shame they moved out of there. No team has ever had a connection with the city they played in as the Brooklyn Dodgers.  I also heard many stories of the 1951 playoff against the New York Giants, when Bobby Thompson hit the historic home run to beat the Dodgers and go the World Series that year.  In 1959, a Los Angeles radio station, I believe it was KFWB, re-broadcast that game and I heard the entirety of it. Here is a six minute YouTube summary of that famous game.

The undisputed leader and the most consequential Dodger of that Brooklyn period, and perhaps the last 100 years, was the great Jackie Robinson; the first black player to play in the major leagues. There is no doubt in my mind that what Jackie did was instrumental in finally ending the vicious discrimination against black Americans years later. He paid a heavy price for it, but it was his dignity, despite brutal discrimination, that showed the world the evil of discrimination. He was the first step, followed by Martin Luther King, which eventually ended the horrors of discrimination. 

As a recent immigrant, I had no idea of the terrible discrimination American blacks were going through in other parts of the country. In Los Angeles where I lived I saw no such discrimination.  I lived in an integrated neighborhood in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles.  Jackie, on the other hand, could not stay at the same hotel or eat at such hotel as his team mates; he had to go to a private home or elsewhere. He had to put up with racial epithets and control his rage.  In Matthew 5:14 Jesus tells us believers that we are the light of the world and that we must show such light so others can see it and glorify God.  Jackie was such a light.  He should be a saint.

For a fine history of Jackie Robinson, I highly recommend a book called "True, the Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson" by Kostya Kennedy.  The book covers his rise from the Negro leagues and his hiring by Branch Ricky of the Brooklyn Dodgers, his first year in the minors in Montreal to his famed Dodger career, ending in 1956 and the period after his baseball career.  Click here to see the book.  

War and Man's Inhumanity to Man

 When I arrived at my US Army post in Nha Trang, South Vietnam in May of 1968 I saw a sign that read :  "Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for I am the evilest son of a bitch in the Valley" (a bad reference to Psalm 23).   Welcome to the hell of war, I thought.  Don't think I would say such a thing here nor anywhere. I could not believe anyone could say such a thing.  I learned later that war makes people lose their moral compass.  Ordinary men become monsters.  On an outing in town one evening, as I was returning to base a drunk GI was trying to grab people passing on motorcycles so he could throw them down and possibly injure or kill them.

Today I read a sad story in the Wall Street Journal of a Russian Wagner group, private army recruit.  Click here for the story.  This man was recruited out of prison with the promise of freedom if he survived after six months of war.  He did not know what he was getting into.  He surrendered to the Ukrainians and was later turned over to the Russians in a prisoner exchange.  Now, the Ukrainians knew that this would be a death sentence; yet they did it.  The Russians brutally butchered the man upon his arrival into their hands.  How can men be so brutal to each other?  Life means nothing in such circumstances. 

The Wagner Group is brutal in their treatment of their own soldiers.  You do what you're ordered to do even if it means a suicide charge of enemy positions.  If you retreat, you're shot by your own people. Welcome to the hell of war.

The Failure of the United Nations

 The United Nations (UN) was originally established after World War II to promote peace in the world.  It's no secret that it has been a complete failure at this.  Let's start with the present and go back.  Last year the Russians invaded Ukraine for the purpose of conquering it and re-establishing the old Soviet Union.  Have you heard any condemnation from the UN about the Ukraine invasion?  If they have, I've not heard it.  The Russians are committing horrible war crimes against humanity in Ukraine.  Where is the outrage?  The Russians have bombed hospitals, children centers and leveled most of Ukraine.  Where is the outrage from the UN? 

The UN has a big microphone; they could make use of it regularly but yet it's silent.  This is par for the course.  When have you heard the UN make any attempts to stop a conflict?  Oh, yes, they have sent some soldiers to hot spots such as Lebanon and the former Yugoslavia, but what has been the result?  

China has recently made it known that they want to conquer Taiwan.  Did you ever hear the UN raise a fuss about it?  No.  Silence.  This is the MO of the UN.  See no evil, hear no evil.  Now they do make their voices heard at times, such as for global warming, for the "woke" agenda and the like, but for world peace?  Nothing.  Stalin was famous for asking the question, "how many divisions does the Pope have?"  The same can be said of the UN.  They have no power and they refuse to use the big pulpit that they have to promote peace.  

When I was studying Public Administration in college there was a saying that once a bureaucracy is established its impossible to get rid of it.  This can be said of the UN.  Even-though they're useless, we can't get rid of it.  I would propose that we stop paying any of their costs.  In business, if you fail, no one will give you money; the same should be done with the UN.

The Importance of Helping Ukraine

 As a conservative I'm amazed at some of my fellow conservatives' animus toward helping Ukraine win their war against Russia.  The other day, one of my friends mentioned that he had heard that there are a lot Nazis in Ukraine.  What?  Where did he hear this from?  This is the false propaganda put out by the hallucinating Putin, as one of his delusional reasons for invading Ukraine.   I've heard similar false fantasies similar to this from other hard-right followers.  Few countries have had a more devastating and murderous history than the Ukrainians. If we just go back to World War II, the Soviet leader Josef Stalin starved four to seven million Ukrainians so he could force them into his farm collectivism.  Click here for the history of this.  After Stalin, the German Nazis came in and invaded the Soviet Union;  devastateing Ukraine, killing millions.  The Nazis were especially adept at getting help from the local population in killing Jews.  In Kiev alone, over 30,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazis.  The Nazis MO was to surround a big city such as Kiev and starve it to death.  A method they repeated in Leningrad.  After the Nazis we had 60 plus years of Soviet Union oppression. For a more detailed history of the Nazi invasion of Russia see the book, "Kiev 1941 Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East" by David Stahl, Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Many Ukrainian deniers of our day will say such things as what do we have to do with a "border conflict" that does not affect us?  What?  This is akin to what Neville Chamberlain said when he made "peace" with Hitler over the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938.  When the Ottoman Turks were conquering the world, the Europeans had the same "I don't care" response.  It does not affect us so we will ignore it.  Well, the Ottomans were not satisfied to conquer the Byzantines, nor the Balkans, they wanted the rest of the world.  They finally reached the door of Europe.  First in the Siege of Vienna in 1529 and again,  the second Siege of Vienna in 1683.  So, a war far away from your border is not your problem?  Wait until they reach your back door.  Europeans today have the same "not interested" attitude.  Sure they're providing some weapons to Ukraine, but their heart is really not there. I recently saw an Instagram video by an Italian politician criticizing the NATO leader Jens Stoltenberg for his support of Ukraine.  When I commented that I agree with the NATO leader, I got some ad hominem attacks.  One (an Italian) responded to my comment that I would be sent to war and then "I would cry for my mommy."  I never mentioned that I was a soldier in a war - Vietnam.  This clueless person exemplifies the malicious nonchalance of the "if it's not in my backyard, I don't care crowd." This attitude has had deadly effects in history.  If the Europeans had been more involved during the Ottoman Turks conquests, Turkey today would not occupy the former Eastern Roman Empire, aka, Asia Minor.  I often hear criticism of Americans in regard to our helping others militarily.   Europeans owe their life to American help.  Without it, Europe would have been under the Nazis after WWII.   The French still do not understand this, after being rescued by Americans twice in 20 years. WWII was far away from America, but America responded to save their European brethren, with little appreciation to this day.

If Russia conquered Ukraine, they will demolish, as they have already done, much of the country and slaughter the Ukrainian population in the process.  Even if you're one of the "not in my backyard" crowd this alone should awaken you to a moral peril that affects every one of us.  Second, Russia will not be satisfied with Ukraine.  They will go after Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, the Baltic states and others.  When will you awake?  When rockets rain down on your city?  Third, a Russian victory will embolden China to conquer Taiwan.  They will not be satisfied with Taiwan either.   Do I have to draw you a map? Was Hitler satisfied with the Sudetenland?  Was he satisfied with occupying most of Europe?  After he accomplished all of this he attacked Russia.  What more examples can I give? 

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.