With Both Barrels:Erik Prince; King Barack; A-bombs; Jump Wings

Please forgive the brevity of this "With Both Barrels."  It's the weekend.  


I wasn't planning on posting, but Dedra is still drinking coffee, the kids are cleaning (whoo-hoo!), and it's a grey, rainy day outside.  Not good weather for the last Saturday of the summer.  But, hey, enough about the Birzer household and onto the larger world.

The New York Times reported on the fate (well, one step in the fate) of Xe (formerly Blackwater) with a bit about its founder, Erik Prince, a Hillsdale College graduate.  

Mr. Prince, a former Navy Seals member and the heir to an auto parts fortune, took an interest in Africa, particularly Sudan, and he is said to have wanted Blackwater to step in to help the rebels in southern Sudan, which is predominantly Christian and animist, fight the Sudanese government and the Muslim north, despite United States economic sanctions.

I've never met Mr. Prince, but he sounds like a fascinating guy.  Those who knew him here at Hillsdale only have good things to say about him.

Guest Post re: Nagasaki by Ryan Mauldin

[n.b.--Ryan sent this reply to me privately.  I have his permission to reprint it, as it's very much worth reprinting.  Ryan was, simply put, an excellent student at Hillsdale.  He's now an equally excellent citizen of this republic and a fine Texan.  He's currently the campaign manager for Erwin Cain, Republican candidate from Sulphur Springs for the Texas State House.  Ryan is just also a truly great guy, and I'm proud to be his friend.

Again, please note: I'm reprinting this--again, with Ryan's permission--but without copy-editing it.  If there are typos, please blame me (Brad) and not Ryan.  Additionally, Ryan's views DO NOT necessarily reflect those of Erwin Cain.] 
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"Nagasaki: Response to Made in America: Massacring the Innocents of Nagasaki"
by Ryan Mauldin

As much as I respect the sentiments driving such writings--and certainly in spite of the respect in which I hold both you and Dr. Kirk--the act of ending the war swiftly through the bombings instead of drawing the brutalities of war into the very homes of the entire Japanese island, instead of only constraining it to two prominent cities, seems to me more merciful amidst the gritty reality of a world torn by war and fanatical execution of fatalistic philosophies through the "sword." 

I've always found it intriguing that much is made of the atomic bombing of these two, yet virtually nothing is ever said of the far greater carnage wreaked upon the Japanese mainland by weeks and weeks of firebombing, which killed many more people, to the measure of several orders of magnitude. Is it the sheer power of the single weapon that draws such a visceral reaction? Certainly the principle of application between the atomic and conventional weaponry was very similar, if not identical. 

Made in America: Massacring the Innocents of Nagasaki

Today is the Feast of St. Edith Stein, martyred in the modern Golgotha of Auschwitz.  The National Socialists executed her sixty-eight years ago.

Exactly three years later, sixty-five years ago today, the United States B-29 bomber, the Bockscar, under the command of Charles Sweeney, dropped the atomic bomb known as the “Fat Boy” on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.  According to estimates, the bomb created winds of over six hundred miles per hour and heat at close to 4,000 degrees fahrenheit.  Somewhere between 60,000 and 80,000 persons died either instantly or over the next two months from injuries sustained from the bomb.

It is difficult for any thinking person--American or otherwise--not to consider this one of the greatest crimes in history, given that so many of those who died were civilians and innocents.

Honoring the Christian Martyrs of Nagasaki, 1945

Carl Olson just posted this at Ignatius Insight.  It's worth reading as we approach the 65th anniversary of this horrific tragedy.

http://hprweb.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=250:the-catholic-holocaust-of-nagasaki-august-9-1945why-lord&catid=34:current-issue

Our military wiped out the only pro-western, Christian city in Japan in August, 1945.  Thousands of innocents died.