Here’s some good stuff from Winter Patriot, who looks at a recent edition of the Wall Street Journal — dribbling chewed cud about the political race and, as always, slathering on war paint for the attack on Persia — and sees the reflection of our sorry state: So this is post-democratic America in its embryonic form: stupid; distracted; cut adrift from reality; corrupt to the bone; fighting a one-sided war of choice and bragging about it; and torturing people until they get mad at us. And then, if they get mad enough to want to hurt us, we’re morally obliged

The Lords of the West have called upon their elder chieftains of war to chart a course that will preserve their power and preeminence in the face of an ever-more uncertain future. The answer? A meaner, leaner NATO, openly committed to a nuclear first-strike strategy and stripped of all the “consensus” garbage that has sometimes hampered the organization’s American bosses.

Five former military headmen from the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Holland have issued a “radical manifesto” calling for “root-and-branch reform” of NATO