In 1962, Barbara Tuchman published the masterpiece, THE GUNS OF AUGUST; about how, in August, 1914, dumb leadership in Europe plunged Western Civilization into one of the dumbest wars in  History. WORLD WAR I, in which the civilized nations of Western Europe, the nations of Tolstoy and Chekhov, Nijinsky and Beethoven, Mozart and Bach, Schiller and Shakespeare, Goethe and Michelangelo, Moliere and Monet, Pasteur and Newton, Galileo and Lister  gave themselves up and over to a moronic war. What is a moronic war? It is a war fought not for Greed, nor Empire, nor Defense nor Expanse, nor Opium Trade, nor Land, nor Defining a Border, nor Irredentism, nor Revanchism, nor Ideology, nor Meanness, nor Independence, nor Religion, nor Genocide, nor to end Slavery, nor Revolution; a moronic war is a war fought for no reason, no good reason, no logical reason, no bad reason, no evil reason. It is a war fought only because decision making has been suspended, not just good ...

When this Blogger was a young lad, once a month or so, he accompanied his Father, a Trotskyite, to do a welfare check on two ancient Russian émigré Trotskyites. They had lived under the     Czar, Lenin and Stalin; before they fled Russia.   One day, they started chatting about Tsar Nicholas II; how unlucky he was. How his very presence caused bad things. They discussed the Khodynka Field Stampede; which occurred in 1896, during the Tsar’s coronation celebration.   Thousands upon thousands of Russians had gathered on a field, outside of Moscow, to receive gift packages from the Tsar. However, there were not enough packages, and a stampede occurred. Over 1,380 Russians were crushed to death.   The ancient lady informed this Blogger that no tragedy like that had ever occurred in Russia before; and she noted that Nicholas was called     NICHOLAS THE BLOODY from that day forward. She also remarked that the event was a bad omen for what was coming. Lost wars...