Two Good Essays

Wil Wirtanen is an intellectual sponge; he soaks up more information in an hour than I can absorb in a week. He also reads gargantuan amounts, and sends me some excellent works. Here are a couple I received from him:

First, this piece deals with Sun Tzu and the strategies of war. The author states:

I read this good post by Donald Sensing, but it left me with the need to correct the great Carl von Clausewitz. His statement, “Without killing, there is no war, is just part of the picture. The larger concept is that, if you cannot create fear in your enemies, you must kill them. If you can create fear, their actual destruction is unnecessary. Only when you fail to create fear must you actually destroy them.

For Sun Tzu, this was simply a matter of economics. The most cost-effective strategy is to make your opponents afraid to challenge you. Actually killing them is more expensive in every way. However, if you cannot create that fear, you are forced to kill. You can generalize this basic idea by thinking in terms of creating positions that others are afraid to challenge versus the cost of actually battling your enemies.

If you want to know who is winning a war, you only have to ask which side has the most fear. On the ground in Iraq, we are winning the battle, even now perhaps in Baghdad, but who is winning the battle of fear in the media war?

Don`t miss this outstanding analysis of warfare-and how we are faring in our current World War with the Muhammadan terror masters.

Next, don`t miss this analysis of the differences between the chattering classes and the doers; the writer makes this distinction:

Talkers avert their eyes from any situation that requires action. They want to pretend that all the world needs is more talk. Unfortunately, the real problems of the world do not require more talk, they require action. They require the destruction of tyrants and killers by doers in the military who are willing to die for a better world. They require economic production by entrepreneurs who are willing to risk their personal wealth in order to win the economic rewards of creating a new and better world.

As Wil pointed out, this explains the differences between George W. Bush and William Jefferson Blythe (he does go blythely on his way!) Clinton; Bush is a doer, while Clinton is a talker. Clinton flapped his gums for 8 years and accomplished nothing, allowing the crisis to reach the level of an emergency, while Bush took decisive action.

Be sure to read both essays-well worth your time.