[October 16, 2023] In any war, there is always a parallel information war. This has been true since the beginning of time. Given our reliance on advanced technology, we can get information quickly. The question is how accurate is that information. In Israel’s war with Hamas, it is overwhelmingly clear that what we see coming from Hamas is… Read More »
[July 30, 2014] Wilson, a childhood friend of mine told the story of his days picking blackberries, many years ago in his father’s land. Those were the days before a heavy reliance on pesticides and so it was expected to have losses due to insect activity. My friend insisted that all those blackberries were “perfect” in every way,… Read More »
[November 18, 2013] Leaders have trouble remembering that “secret” information is not truly secret, especially in this age of evolving communication’s technology. If you tell someone about anything, put it in writing, or place it where it can be seen, it will eventually become public and no longer secret. Most people will remember US Representative Anthony Weiner D-NY,… Read More »
[October 21, 2026] Failure is not the enemy. That statement runs against the grain of how most people actually live. They treat a defeat as a catastrophe to be avoided, or as proof that their entire enterprise was mistaken from the start. The practical consequence is that they keep their aims deliberately vague. If the target is never… Read More »
[October 20, 2026] As noted in earlier articles (links here and here), I’m laying out the major elements, strategies, and inner-workings of the Iraq War as we approached the “Surge.” We were undergoing Base Development for a large increase in troop and equipment strength. The idea is that I will later turn this into a manuscript or book.… Read More »
[October 17, 2026] Unpredictable events, good or bad, hit people, organizations, and whole societies harder than anyone planned for. After the fact, someone always calls the outcome destiny. That is hindsight talking. We cannot predict these events. But we can build habits and systems that let us absorb the bad ones and use the good ones. Nassim Nicholas… Read More »
Hero: Seaman Doug Hegdahl [October 15, 2026] Douglas Brent “Doug” Hegdahl III is a former U.S. Navy sailor and Vietnam War POW known for an extraordinary act of intelligence gathering while imprisoned at the Hỏa Lò Prison (the “Hanoi Hilton”). Today, I’m calling him a hero. He enlisted in the Navy in 1966 after high school. On the… Read More »
[October 14, 2026] I first saw this AI-generated video on Asmondgold. By yesterday afternoon, it had garnered 15 million views since its original posting on September 24. For some reason, I liked it. And now it’s here for your enjoyment, too. This is a roughly 2-minute-16-second stylized video (posted by @IterIntellectus with the note that he asked Claude… Read More »
[October 9, 2026] One advantage of hindsight is being able to pull current historical documents and align them with what we thought we knew in the past. I am compiling a collection of notes on the Iraq War “Surge,” and I’ll later publish them as a manuscript. That publication is targeted for next year, 2027. In the meantime,… Read More »
[October 7, 2026] Today is the third anniversary of Israel’s October 7 massacre by the Islamic “religion of peace.” The world’s reaction to the massacre continues to be inexplicable and appalling, except in terms of Islam’s anti-Semitic ideology. I’m going a little out of my way to put into words some of my thoughts. . Today is a… Read More »