TRO #1

I occasionally have a Totally Random Observation that I don’t have time to develop into a blog. And then it hit me -- my readers are intelligent adults. They can do some thinking without me.

I was reading an old book from Tom Clancy -- Executive Orders. I don’t know how I missed it...but that is neither here nor there. (It’s a good book by the way.) Near the end was this statement from the main character -- John Patrick Ryan.

“Peoples do not make war. The decision to start a war is most often made by one man. They used to be kings, or princes, or barbarian chiefs, but throughout history it’s usually one man who decides, and never is the decision to start a war of aggression the result of a democratic process.”

(italics in the original, bold highlight added)

Tom Clancy thought of using a commercial airliner as a guided missile long before 9/11/2001. But he never dreamed of George W. Bush and a democratic war of choice.

Don Brown
September 10, 2009