“If you’ve got to eat an elephant, you shouldn’t be surprised if after the first few mouthfuls you’re not down to the bones.”
“Britain’s top military officer … chief of defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup” quoted in Ottawa Citizen Sept. 10, 2007 [at a NATO meeting, re the Afghan mission, but it remains good advice despite the ultimate debacle there].
“Now if you are going to win any battle, you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired morning, noon and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired … You’ve always got to make the mind take over and keep going.”
“George S. Patton, general” quoted by Donna Jacobs “Monday Morning” in Ottawa Citizen October 2, 2006
“All this shows how much luck there is in human affairs, and how little we should worry about anything except doing our best.”
Winston Churchill The Hinge of Fate [with respect to Parliament not turning on him in the dark period]
In my latest Epoch Times column I take aim at the government’s self-deceiving reliance on “continue” to describe things they are not even trying to do and would not know how to start trying.
In my latest Epoch Times column I challenge Canadians, especially those in positions of authority, to stop embracing and even enforcing mediocrity… starting by admitting they have a problem.
“It is one of the most interesting principles of ancient and modern warfare (one of the few reliable laws of history) that ‘the nation which commands the sea is also the nation which commands the land.’ So far this law has never failed to work, but the modern airplane may have changed it.”
Hendrik Van Loon The Story of Mankind
On Monday I spoke to the Royal Canadian Military Institute about a number of surprises regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, some of which should not have been surprising.
In my latest Epoch Times column I contrast our supposed new strategy for dealing with Communist China’s aggression with the iconic American Cold War strategy document NSC-68 and ours comes off looking mentally, verbally and morally feeble.