I think Iraq is in many respects the closing act of that war. The fall of the Soviet Union was the final act of the unravelling of the Russian Empire and Iraq is the final sorting out of the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

So much of today is rooted in WW1 and what for me is clearly a disaster the Germans wrought for our century. It shapes all of our thinking including much pacifist rhetoric which has never been updated for a coed Army. A friend of mine kept talking about young men fighting a war directed by old Generals and I had to correct her that there were a good many young women out there, both fighting and Generals. I showed her the names of the dead.

I’ve loved that John McCutcheon song I posted for years. When he performs it live, he tells a story about some old codgers who always used to come to his concerst to hear him sing that song. Finally he asked them “what’s the deal?”, and learned that they were emigres from Germany who had fought on the German side in WWI, and that they loved hearing him because they were there, it really happened, and so few remember.