Sometimes your worst enemies aid you in ways you could never help yourself.
From July 10 to October 31, 1940, hundreds of badly-outnumbered pilots of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) fought off relentless attacks by Germany’s feared Luftwaffe—since known as the Battle of Britain.
But Adolf Hitler wasn’t prepared to give up. He believed he could so terrorize Britons that they would insist that their government submit to German surrender demands.
From September 7, 1940 to May 21, 1941, the Luftwaffe subjected England—and especially London—to a ruthless bombing campaign that became known as The Blitz.
The undamaged St. Paul’s Cathredal, December, 1940
More than 100 tons of high explosives were dropped on 16 British cities.
During 267 days—almost 37 weeks—between 40,000 and 43,000 British civilians were killed. About 139,000 others were wounded.
Clearly, what Great Britain desperately needed most was a miracle.
Exactly that happened on June 22, 1941.
With 134 Divisions at full fighting strength and 73 more divisions for deployment behind the front, the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union.
German tanks invading Russia
Joseph Stalin, the longtime Soviet dictator, was stunned. The invasion had come less than two years after Germany had signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.
Now they were locked in a fight to the death.
People in England were suddenly hopeful. Britain now had an ally whose resources might tip the balance against Hitler—as they did.
Fast forward to 2020.
After Donald Trump became President of the United States in 2017, he seemed invincible: Over the next three years, he:
- Repeatedly and viciously attacked the nation’s free press for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, calling it “the enemy of the American people.”
- Publicly sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against American Intelligence agencies (FBI, CIA, National Security Agency) which unanimously agreed that Russia had subverted the 2016 Presidential election,
- Fired FBI Director James Comey for investigating that subversion.
- Gave Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak highly classified CIA Intelligence about an Islamic State plot to turn laptops into concealable bombs.
- Allowed predatory corporations to subvert Federal regulatory protections for consumers and the environment.
- Shut down the Federal Government for more than a month on December 22, 2018, because Democrats refused to fund his “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay.
- Attempted to extort a “favor” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: Threatening to withhold military aid unless Zelensky agreed to slander Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic Presidential candidate Joseph Biden.
- Threatened members of Congress with treason charges for daring to challenge him.
- After being acquitted of impeachable offenses by the Senate, Trump fired the Inspectors General (IG) of five cabinet departments in six weeks.
Donald Trump
And through all those outrages, House and Senate Republican majorities remained silent or vigorously supported him.
Democrats seemed unable to cope with Trump’s legislative agenda and his personal attacks on Twitter and in press conferences.
Even when the press unearthed his latest corruptions, the public didn’t care.
Then, in January, 2020, the Coronavirus pandemic struck the United States.
On February 29, the first American died from the disease.
Donald Trump’s first reaction was to minimize the threat: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”
Then he turned to outright lying: “Now the Democrats are politicizing the Coronavirus….They tried the impeachment hoax….It’s all turning, they lost….And this is their new hoax.”
When many of the nation’s mayors and governors urged citizens to wear face masks and socially distance themselves from others, Trump urged his supporters to defy both. And they did as he ordered—marching down streets shoulder-to-shoulder, most of them not wearing masks, and with many of them carrying automatic rifles.
Coronavirus
In March, when much of the country’s businesses shut down, Trump demanded their immediate reopening—although there was no vaccine nor even adequate testing and contact-tracing facilities. This would allow him to claim he had “restored” the American economy.
Many states—especially in the South and Midwest—reopened prematurely. As a result, by his last day in office—January 20, 2021—American COVID-19 deaths numbered 400,000.
Then Trump demanded that Americans put their children at risk by sending them back to school in the fall—so their parents could return to work. Then he could claim he’d “saved” the American economy—and be re-elected.
Meanwhile, countless Stormtrumpers in Texas, Florida and other Red states had died because they refused to wear masks and/or social distance. His most high profile supporter to die: Herman Cain, the 2012 Republican Presidential candidate.
Significantly, Cain died one month after attending Trump’s Tulsa rally on June 20.
Thus, Trump, through his arrogance and ignorance, had inflicted far greater casualties on his core supporters and poll numbers than the Democrats ever could—or would.
His lies had been exposed. His followers were succumbing to a disease he called a Democratic hoax. He had nothing to offer as a cure for the economy—or the pandemic. And his polls were tanking.
Seventy-nine years earlier, events turned around for England when all seemed lost. The same proved true for former Vice President Joe Biden on November 3.
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WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN AND NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI ADVISE ISRAEL
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 23, 2023 at 1:13 amThomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson, the great Southern general of the American Civil War (1861-1865) had a simple philosophy of war.
To end Union efforts to crush the newly-minted Confederate States of America, he urged Southerners to take no prisoners. Instead, they should kill every Union soldier they could lay hands on.
Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson
Jackson’s views on war were shared by not only his fellow Southerners but, ironically, by one of the fiercest enemies of the Confederacy: William Tecumseh Sherman.
Sherman was the Union general who in 1864 cut a swath of destruction through the South while “marching through Georgia.”
He is credited—or reviled—as the father of “total war,” thus making the suffering of civilians an integral part of any conflict. Sherman realized that civilian support played a vital role in a nation’s war-making capacity.
Destroy that support, he believed, and the conflict would end.
In March, 1985, just as the Civil War was close to its end, a staff officer told Sherman about Jackson’s opinion on not taking prisoners.
Asked for his reaction, Sherman said: “Perhaps he was right. It seems cruel, but if there were no quarter given, most men would keep out of war. Rebellions would be few and short.”
William Tecumseh Sherman
Contrast that with the way Israel has long responded to hundreds of unprovoked rocket attacks by the Hamas terrorist group.
Beginning in July 8, 2014, the Israeli Air Force bombarded more than 900 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.
Israel claimed it was trying to avoid civilian casualties in the crowded urban landscape. Members of the Israeli military began telephoning Palestinian residents whose homes had been targeted, warning them to leave.
One resident, Sawsan Kawarea, claimed she received a call from “David,” who said he was with the Israeli military.
“He asked for me by name. He said: ‘You have women and children in the house. Get out. You have five minutes before the rockets come,’” Kawarea said in an interview.
She ran outside with her children. A small rocket hit the house soon afterward. Five minutes later, a larger missile hit, destroying the house.
For years, the Israeli military has delivered such warnings via cellphone calls and small “warning rockets”—usually sent from drones.
The strategy has a nickname: “Roof knocking.”
It’s Israel’s response to longtime criticism for “collateral damage.” That is: Civilians killed while its military takes action in the crowded Palestinian territories.
The policy allows Israel to say: We did our best to avoid killing civilians.
But in waging Politically Correct warfare to head off criticism, Israel has made a dangerous mistake.
Niccolo Machiavelli, the 15th century Florentine statesmen, carefully studied both war and politics.
Niccolo Machiavelli
In his major work, The Discourses, he wrote candidly about how to preserve liberties within a republic. In waging war, he advised:
…Often individual men, and sometimes a whole city, will act so culpably against the state that as an example to others and for his own security the prince has no other remedy but to destroy it entirely. Honor consists in being able, and knowing when and how, to chastise evil-doers.
And a prince who fails to punish them, so that they shall not be able to do any more harm, will be regarded as either ignorant or cowardly.
Meanwhile, on the Gaza Strip: After a week of Israeli bombing more than 900 Hamas targets, Palestinian medical officials claimed that 186 people had been killed and at least 1,390 wounded.
That worked out to about 26 people killed every day.
Contrast those figures with the casualties suffered by a single German city during World War 11 air raids during eight days and seven nights.
Beginning on July 24, 1943, the U.S. Air Force and the British Royal Air Force over several days killed 42,600 civilians and wounded 37,000 in Hamburg and practically destroyed the entire city.
The bombing ignited a firestorm that incinerated more than eight square miles, baking alive many of those who sought safety in cellars and bomb shelters.
Hamburg, Germany, after Allied bombing raids
For the vaunted Israeli Air Force to have killed so few of its enemies after dropping so many bombs testified to a massive waste of ordinance.
Clearly, the only people making good on these raids were the arms makers supplying the bombs.
If the United States and Great Britain had managed to kill only 26 Germans a day in World War II, America, Britain and Nazi Germany would still be at war today.
No wonder Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel.
Machiavelli knew—and often warned—that while it was useful to avoid hatred, it was fatal to be despised. And he also warned that humility toward insolent enemies will only encourage their hatred and contempt for you.
An Aesop’s fable well sums up the lesson Israel should have learned long ago: A snake was stepped on by so many people he prayed to Zeus for help. And Zeus said: “If you’d bitten the first person who stepped on you, the second would have thought twice about it.”
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