Grim's Hall

A Revolution that Never Comes

In Europe, the Right wins but is never allowed to take power. There's a certain degree of similarity here, where the Republican establishment exists mostly to defang the American Right by giving them someone to vote for, but arranging to lose key votes (see Obamacare, John McCain; or the SAVE Act, John Thune). The powerbrokers claim to be on the side of the people, but they're really on the side of the powerful: that's how they got where they are, and how they stay where they are.

In Europe, it's worse. At least we get some decent political appointees, until the next election at least.

Last Sunday was supposed to settle the question of whether Europe’s populist right can govern, and instead it sharpened a different one: Whether the establishment can keep winning without solving anything. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally dominated the first round of municipal elections — finishing first in at least 75 communes, roughly seven times its 2020 number — only to be beaten back in the second-round runoffs by the familiar mechanism of the front républicain, losing Marseille by fifteen points, squandering a thirteen-point lead in Toulon, and watching Paris stay comfortably in Socialist hands for a twenty-sixth consecutive year. The French firewall held, for now.

In Germany, no such firewall exists in the architecture of the ballot, only in the minds of party leaders. In Rhineland-Palatinate, the AfD more than doubled its vote share to 19.5 per cent — the party’s best result ever in a western German state — and among voters aged 18 to 24 it was the most popular party outright. Among manual workers, it reached 30 per cent; in some Westerwald constituencies it approached half of all votes cast. The SPD, which had governed the state for thirty-five unbroken years, lost nearly ten points and was displaced by the CDU. And yet, just as in France, the result will change nothing in the short term: All parties maintain the cordon sanitaire, a grand coalition will be formed, and the voters who chose the AfD will once again be governed by a coalition that exists primarily to exclude them.

Likewise in the UK.

The same fault line runs through Britain, where the post-Brexit immigration surge – non-EU net migration reaching record highs under the very government that promised to “take back control” – has made a mockery of democratic consent. It runs through Germany, through the Netherlands, through Austria.

At some point this delegitimizes the democratic process entirely; it can't be legitimate if it's just another method of control, instead of a method of self-governance.

Honneur et Fidélité

Grim's "March or Die" post led to me reading up a bit on the French Foreign Legion. Here are the lyrics to their official march (translated, of course):

Le Boudin ("Blood Sausage," AKA "Marche de la Légion Étrangère")

Chorus:

Hey, here's blood sausage, here's blood sausage, here's blood sausage,

For the Alsatians, the Swiss, and the Lorrains,

For the Belgians, there is none left,

They are lazy,

For the Belgians, there is none left,

They are lazy.

1st verse:

We are crafty,

We are rogues,

Not ordinary guys,

We often have our cockroach, [dark moods]

We are Legionnaires.

In Tonkin, the Immortal Legion

Honoured our flag at Tuyen Quang.

Heroes of Camarón and model brothers

Sleep in peace in your tombs.

(Repeat chorus)

2nd verse:

Our ancestors knew how to die

For the glory of the Legion.

We will all know how to perish

Following tradition.

During our far-off campaigns,

Facing fever and fire,

Let us forget, along with our sorrows,

Death, which forgets us so little.

We the Legion.

(Repeat chorus)

What's up with the blood sausage and the Belgians? Apparently, blood sausage (le boudin) is the nickname for the bedroll that was tied on top the rucksack back in the 19th century, when this was written. One explanation for the role of the Belgians is that, back then, Frenchmen could not enlist in the Legion, but French criminals would pass themselves off as Belgians in order to enlist and escape the police. Being criminals, they weren't very good soldiers. There are other explanations, but I like that one.

4/1/26 Update: Really, I got too involved with searching for why the Belgians get picked on. There's no reason the chorus can't just be about breakfast, and maybe some Belgians were late one morning. Who knows?

Here's the Legion band:

The Legion is the only regular French army unit, apparently, that does not have "Honneur et Patrie" as it's motto sewn onto its flags but instead "Honneur et Fidélité." "Honor and Fatherland" doesn't make much sense for a unit of foreigners. It's second motto is "Legio Patria Nostra" -- "The Legion is Our Fatherland."

I'm just saying.

Tables of Organization

This is funny for those of you who can read a military TOE.

If you can't: Both the 82nd Airborne brigade being deployed and the Marine Expeditionary Units are Brigade sized elements, so they'd be commanded by a division command -- and it looks like the 82nd's is the one being deployed. If they are combined into a single Division-sized unit, then, the 82nd would have overall command of the Marines. This is frustrating for the Marines. That's the joke.

"OPCON" means "Operational Control," while "TACON" means "Tactical Control." So while the 82nd DIV HQ would have full control over the 1-82 BCT, it would still be able to tell the Marines what to do on the battlefield.

A War Against Israeli Interest

Robert Oprisko is a philosopher I know personally: he and I both write on the role of honor in moral philosophy, and share broadly compatible views about it. We've met for pizza in Asheville and exchanged ideas on several occasions.

Today he has published a paper that offers a surprising view: Operation Epic Fury has been damaging to Israel's interests. Most of the commentary against the war has suggested that the war is very obviously in Israel's interests, and that America has been suckered into it by wily (or overly-influential) Israelis. Just yesterday I wrote briefly on why I think the war is overdetermined in America's interests; I don't take seriously the view that America hasn't got a national interest here, but instead think it has so many and such powerful interests at stake that many of them would individually be worth the fight.

Yet here we see an argument that, in fact, while America may benefit from this war, Israel will lose even as it achieves its battlefield aims.

Anxiety over the existentially precarious position Israel occupies in the Middle East has persisted for thousands of years, though it has grown and intensified after World War II; genocide was no longer mere theory, it had been attempted. While existential anxiety can be alleviated, mitigated, and ultimately eliminated through dedication, discipline, and intentional action, Israel’s persists. Israeli and American politicians have personally found it politically useful... The fear of oblivion is so strong that support of Israel by citizens of allies (i.e., persons who don’t live in Israel and aren’t Jewish) represents a litmus test of the allies’ heads of government. For Israel, you are either with or against... Given the deep and pervasive concern of annihilation, Israeli spite to withstand and reject external pressure elicits asympathetic policy response from allies and reinforces the security protocols to reduce said anxiety.

...

Operation Epic Fury has shown anabsolute character for Iran, but not for either Israel or the United States: Iran has absolutely no capacity formeaningful response..... Israel is capable of self-defense against Iran as a source of anxiety. In fact, they are capable of offense. More to the point, Iran is clearly not at the same level of military capacity, capability, or sophistication as Israel.... The “war” is not a war at all – Iran can’t fight back, they lost before they knew a fight was taking place....

The clear and undeniable success of the joint US-Israeli strikes against Iran do not simply mitigate the existential anxiety of the Jewish people and state, it utterly destroys the public façade maintaining that anxiety and eliminates the ideology as an aegis for any aggressive action taken (Oprisko 2015). Operation Epic Fury has been so successful so quickly, and the rationale for the aggression so flimsy that the world isn’t responding jingoistically, it’s attending a funeral; the world hasn’t seen such a lopsided win in an “even fight” since Ali-Liston II (Albanesi 2021).By having one-shot the end boss, the US and Israel have lost a value greater than any they will gain through success: an excuse for any bad behavior (Kain 2024).Overwhelming military dominance should feel like success, but the end result is failure via strategic blunder: Israel has inadvertently killed the ‘golden goose’ of all defenses by exposing Iran as a hollow threat.

I think there's something to this. Israel has gone all-in* on the attempt to settle family business while it has a reliable presidential ally in the United States. It used its "grim beeper" ploy; it used its capacity to assassinate inside the most protected Iranian secure zone; it used its drone box to take out Iranian air defenses; it used up its whole targeting list on the first night or two of strikes; and now it is using its carefully-established networks inside Iran to identify and remove IRGC commanders leading the population suppression. Oprisko is probably right that they have also decided to use up the sense of vulnerability that they have long depended upon politically and diplomatically.

That will have consequences. The Israel that emerges from this war will be very different from the one we have known for so long, and seen as hemmed in on all sides and threatened with destruction. This will have psychological consequences for Israelis at home, and political ones worldwide.

I don't know that I agree that this will damage them in the long term, however. Someone used to say something about how good it is to be "the strong horse"; Osama somebody. It certainly works in the Arab world: just today the Wall Street Journal published a call from the UAE's current Ambassador to the United States -- and Minister of State -- to finish Iran once and for all, combined with his government's commitment to doing so.

* Oprisko and I are both using sports and gaming metaphors, I notice. I linked the Ali-Liston II fight video in case any of you hadn't seen that famous boxing match, or just wanted to see it again. "To one-shot a boss" is a metaphor from tabletop war gaming and/or role-playing games in which a single attack made on a target, in this case a 'boss' or final target, is able to kill it or destroy its ability to fight. In this case, the Ayatollah was 'one-shotted' in the sense of being killed; Iran itself might be said to have been as well; its continued but flagging resistance is trumpeted in the media, but the end-game is obvious to serious observers outside the news cycle. Finally, 'to go all-in' is a poker metaphor for pushing all of one's chips into the pot on the current hand.

Some Catholic News

The full article is here. The wag's remarks are on point; even when Popes had a lot more practical authority than currently, the crossbow thing didn't work out even in Italy. During the Battle of Poiters, the French Army was supported by 2,000 Genoese mercenary crossbowmen.

On the other hand, crossbow bans are back in the news (in the UK, of course, where they somehow continue to labor under the idea that they can ban everything that is potentially dangerous and then crime will go away).

Also on that other hand, the Pope's authority at least in America may be gaining. Commenting on a news story that Catholic converts now outnumber Evangelicals, Robert Kearney writes:

De Tocqueville foresaw a future time in America where Protestantism (existing as an intermediate form between pure reason and full authority) would struggle to endure long-term under our democratic conditions.

Due to this, people would increasingly gravitate either toward complete unbelief or toward Catholicism due to the Church's existence as a singular, authoritative structure that could give answers to people and help organize society in order for it to remain functioning.

Perhaps the 21st century may see his vision fulfilled.

I'm not sure we won't still be flying the A-10 and B-52 by the end of the century, but I guess we'll see. Well, our children or grandchildren, I suppose.

Strategic Upsides in Iran

Dad29 has competing analyses of Iran. This one is negative, and focused as much of the negative commentary on the role of Israel. The US has at least three kinds of things it calls 'allies,' to include client states like Canada, which is one even though it deeply resents it (as until recently was the UK; the influence of Islamism and leftism on the UK elite is pulling us apart, but only a bit so far); true allies like Japan, whose interests are so closely aligned with ours that cooperation makes sense almost all the time; and states like France or Turkey that are allies for strategic reasons, but whose interests come apart from ours so significantly that we are often in serious opposition to one another. Israel occupies something between the second and third position. It has independent interests that differ from ours, and it sometimes pursues those; but most of its interests align with ours, and most of the time we act as genuine allies and partners.

This Childers analysis of the Iran war, by contrast, is highly positive. It is also broadly correct, though as D29 notes it omits risks -- of which there are several beyond anything to do with Israel, including supply chain disruptions not only of fuel but of downstream goods like aluminum. If aluminum plants run out of fuel and have to shut down, it takes months to restart them.

The strategic upsides, however, are unassailable. Childers only gets at some of them, partly because there are so many they're hard to list in one place. For decades Iran has been situated at the center of the Chinese-Russian efforts in the Middle East: Russia's naval base in Syria was guaranteed by Iran's puppet Assad; when Assad fell Russia was pushed out of the Middle East (though still very active in Africa).

China's oil supply is underwritten by Iran, which has provided cut-rate oil in return for China ignoring sanctions on Iran's oil. If the US military takes Karg and a friendly government is established that endorses that (as the US was allowed to occupy part of Okinawa by Japan after WWII), it puts the US in charge of that oil supply. That gives the US a powerful lever on Chinese actions anywhere. It isn't quite a veto -- Russia can still provide oil to China -- but it is a brake because Chinese actions against US interests are subject to new tradeoffs and pressures.

Also, China's Belt-and-Road project to Europe ran through Iran and Russia. The Russian arm is already cut off because of the war Putin started with Ukraine; the loss of the Iranian arm will cause China to have lost billions in investments and all of its expected returns in terms of regional influence in the Middle East and Europe.

The Iranian response also has upsides for the US, strategically. Childers gets to several of them; but another one is that the Ukraine anti-drone lessons-learned have become newly important to all the Gulf States. That means that Ukraine will receive investment buoying it up greater than it was hoping to receive in aid. This will further exhaust the Russian capacity for aggression, or for actions abroad in places like Africa.

The war isn't without costs, and the end-game will doubtless incur more. The strategic upside to pursuing it to victory is very clear, however.

Which One?

The NRA proudly announced that it had defeated "California's illegal gun control law," but you have to read their article to figure out which one they meant. This one was illegal under the First Amendment, more than the Second Amendment. There are plenty of Second Amendment violations still extant there, and soon to be a bunch more in Virginia.

A Brazilian Feminist

Despite my criticism of the Modern interpretation of “equality” in political philosophy, and consequent rejection of philosophies based on that interpretation, I maintain quite a few deep and friendly relationships with feminist philosophers I have encountered over the years. Very often, at least among philosophers, agreement is not necessary for friendship as long as there is mutually respectful consideration of each other’s ideas. (That, by the way, is a sort of ‘proportionate equality’ of the type we examined in the long series on Aristotle’s EN. It is a much healthier model than the Modern attempt to impose mathematical equality in ethics and politics.)

One of them is here interviewed about a Brazilian early feminist. Many of you may find this interesting.

Fool You Twice

Before the Iran War started, there was a round of negotiations that ultimately proved just to be a delaying tactic: Israel was hosting India's leader that week, and needed time to finalize their new alliance.

This week we're told there's a pause in the war to allow for a new round of negotiations. Coincidentally, that will also give time for the United States Marines transiting by sea from Japan to get on-station in theater. The apparent WARNO to the 82nd Airborne, the Army's most rapidly deployable force, also looks relevant to that "week of talks."

Is peace at hand? I wouldn't wager on it. I'm not sure who is left over there who has authority to negotiate a peace in any case.

UPDATE: Open sources indicate that the 'who' is the Speaker of the Parliament of Iran. In spite of the title, this isn't really a 'parliament' in the usual sense of the word: it's official title is "The Islamic Consultative Assembly." The "Consultative" part is what distinguishes it from a true parliament: "All legislation endorsed by the Islamic Consultative Assembly must be submitted to the Guardian Council. Within a maximum of ten days from its receipt, the Guardian Council must review the legislation to ensure its compatibility with Islamic criteria and the Constitution. If any incompatibility is identified, the legislation is returned to the Assembly for further review."

Israel is said to have approved their movement to Islamabad for talks. If we are aware of the flight and the photos from the open sources, you can be reasonably sure they'll be tracked home -- probably all the way home. It is generally wise to leave someone alive with the authority to surrender.

We Aren't the World

Those of us in the usual age cohort for the Hall remember the "We Are the World" business. The song's 'collect all the celebrities and have them sing in no real genre to try to create a widespread emotional response' mode was mocked in the mockumentary Wag the Dog. In the real life version, Waylon Jennings walked out over the demand that he sing in Swahili, which it turns out is not even a language spoken in Ethiopia, a fact the celebrities were ignorant of at the time.

Probably all of us are also aware of how much aid money has been poured into Africa, and to how little effect, in the ensuing decades. I mention all this to draw your attention to an article from Arab News, which suggests that Africa may not need aid anymore:

Abrupt donor retrenchment since 2025 has stripped away long-standing assumptions about who finances development on the continent. Economic data now tells a story that would have sounded improbable two decades ago: Africa no longer depends on aid to grow. Yet many African states still depend on aid to function.

Economic resilience in the face of shrinking donor flows has been striking.... Yet fiscal aggregates conceal structural fragilities. Aid once served as a parallel operating system for essential services... Roads can be financed through bonds and tolls; antiretroviral drugs cannot. Power plants attract investors; primary schools rarely do. The result is a bifurcated development model, one that sustains growth while eroding human capital....

Such contradictions define the current moment. Wealth exists, but systems to deploy it effectively remain uneven because governance sits at the center of this disconnect.

If you got the government out of the way in the "essential services" sectors, corruption would decrease and efficiency would improve. There may be enough wealth coming in without aid to make Africa work now; further aid only keeps the entrenched governments secure in their role of controlling those sectors.

And it won't become self-aware

H/t Instapundit, a hydrogel wound dressing that releases antibiotics only when it detects bacterial activity.

Show them the money

As a means to control national voter fraud, this could work. The same states that worship voter fraud also really like to suck up federal money, and in the competition between the two ignoble impulses, my bet's on the money.

The only living boy in NY

Paul Simon could write a bridge like nobody's business.

March or Die

The French Foreign Legion has that as their unofficial motto, so I am told. They do not admit women into their ranks.

MJ calls what happened to her in Zion national park “small ‘T’ trauma”. She knows women have experienced worse from their partners. But she still feels the anger of being left behind on a hike by her now ex. “It brings up stuff in my body that maybe I have not cleared out yet,” she said.

This article was brought to my attention by a hiking buddy; we once did 50 miles together in the Great Smoky Mountains, over some very tough terrain and during weather that threatened hypothermia. On the march up the mountain that used to be called Clingman's Dome, third highest in the eastern United States, we separated just this way. I don't remember who got to the top first or last, nor does he; it didn't cause either of us any trauma at all. It was just the natural thing to do to separate given unequal aerobic capability.

Many of the women described having some level of dependence on their partner in nature. They may not have been carrying the right supplies or enough water, or were not familiar with the terrain, making them feel vulnerable.... One woman described a 12-hour journey out of the Grand Canyon after her boyfriend ditched her, during which she was assisted by a “very nice man from Norway” who carried her backpack.... A man walking 100ft ahead of his girlfriend because he cannot be bothered to wait for her is bad manners. But failing to properly care for someone in an environment they’re not prepared to handle alone can cause real harm.

Speaking as a certified Wilderness rescue technician, don't go to the mountains if you aren't up to it. I'll come help you if I can, as will many others who have volunteered their time to train for that mission. Nevertheless, you really should be sensible about what your limits are. If you need someone else to carry your backpack, pack lighter. If you don't know what you're doing, study and train first. It's not that hard, but it also isn't trivial.

Virginia voters are shocked to find out that Virginia Democrats are voting to exempt themselves from the new gun control measures they are imposing.

“The provision of this section shall not apply to any member of the General Assembly.”

That suffices.

Therefore: the right of the people to keep and bear arms is a right that no government, this nor any other, can infringe upon without a basic denial of human dignity. Such a denial itself entails a right of self-defense against such a government; and the everlasting potential for such a denial therefore entails an everlasting, permanent, and basic right to arms.

Death & Rebirth in the Pigeon River Valley

More on this later.

H/t Wretchard.

This phase of the war will be over soon. After that, we will see: it depends upon how they employ the Marines they’re sending.