The Iraq War on the edge of our Victory I know American soldiers. I remember a marine who was in one of the criminal London classes I give in the Cromwell road. He'd done a tour of Afghanistan, and was about to be sent to Iraq. He never mentioned it, and apologised without saying why he had to leave the class early when he could have asked for any grade he wanted, really. I was impressed by him, as I tend to be by the US Marines. I think all he wanted to do to get away from things was solve the Jack the Ripper case, which was one of life's twists that make the demands of intellectuals for consistency in human rationality so absurd. I've also met special forces people who turned up on an Oxford summer school I taught a few years ago who was torn to bits by his killings in Nicaragua, so angry he held me and the world he considered liberal in contempt. God knows what he would have done had he met the half of the world to the left of me. My memories of Maryland are bound up wit...
This is a collection of personal and largely unedited observations covering the years from 2006 to now; I assert my copyright but am fine with links and footnotes. Some posts are obviously much more researched than others, and any errors are wholly mine except where I have innocently disseminated or linked to other bloggers or commentators.