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Jul

College Friend Jim Reston Passes!

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My good friend from college days at the University of North Carolina died recently. Jim Rushton wrote 18 books. He was a historian and novelist, and he provided a 96-page “interrogation” memo for David Frost’s TV interviews that prodded Nixon to admit, “I let the American people down” over Watergate. He was a great athlete at Carolina, and still holds the record for scoring the most goals in a soccer match there. We last visited in Linville, North Carolina on his book tour a year ago. During our Carolina days, Jim and I would have dinner each evening at the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house. I wish our conversations had been recorded as we made a gallant effort to solve most of the world’s problems. Jim was 82 years old and died of cancer. I will sure miss my friend of 70 years. To read his full biography, Click Here.

Mar

DELUSION OR COMMON SENSE IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

March 8, 2026JimWeekly Column

Monday, March 9^th, 2026

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

DELUSION OR COMMON SENSE IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

Although presidents from both political parties process no desire to carry on wars throughout the Middle East, history shows otherwise. The bigger question is just how much involvement should the United States undertake in the Middle East? We have been fighting endless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and putting out never ending brushfires throughout this region for the past eighty years. Some 20,000 American soldiers have lost their lives fitting in this region since 9/11.

It just might be a good idea for Republicans and Democrats, who fall over themselves espousing America’s continuing role in the Middle East, to take a breather and read Nobel prize author and poet Rudyard Kipling.

“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat.”

America has commanded a major presence throughout the Middle East for one major reason. Oil. It was in our economic interest to remake the Muslim world by the B and B method. Bribing and Bombing. President Trump just was candid during his first term in saying: “I don’t think we should be there other than to control the oil.” In the 1980s, U.S. interests were served by pouring money and weapons into Afghanistan in support of Islamic radicals who were trying to expel the Russians. Then our one-time allies turned on us, and the initial seeds of al-Qaeda were sown, and America has been in a quagmire ever since.

In the last decade, we plunged into Iraq, where there was initially only a minor al-Qaeda presence. But the quixotic U.S. invasion poured gasoline onto the anti U.S. fire, causing the death of some 6700 American soldiers, leaving a country in shambles, with not one barrel of oil confiscated in this wasted effort. Then it was on to Afghanistan, and again, for no apparent reason. (But al-Qaeda is lurking!) Osama bin Laden is dead but his effort to bog down the U.S. in endless Middle East wars is right on target.

Writing in the British newspaper The Guardian, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad concluded, “The maelstrom of anti-western violence in the Arab world has more to do with decades of perceived western imperialism. Obama’s Arab honeymoon was squandered in the past by drone attacks on Pakistan and Yemen.”

Drone attacks he points out are used to get rid of the bad guys. And yes, we need to get rid of the bad guys. But as children’s book author Dr. Paul Craig Roberts points out in a Trends Journal article:

“Washington’s assaults on seven countries have blown up weddings, funerals, kids’ soccer games, farm houses, hospitals, aid workers, schools, people walking along the streets, village elders, but the Muslims don’t mind! They understand that the well-meaning Americans, who love them and are committed to their human rights, are bringing them democracy and women’s rights. The million or more dead, maimed, and displaced Muslims are a low price to be paid for liberation by Washington.”

Do you catch his sarcasm? This is the way a delusional Washington works, thinks. It’s the military slaughter of innocent Muslims and control over their societies and political life that causes the rage against us.

The Middle East has been in turmoil for over 2000 years. And just about everyone has attempted to control this part of the world over the course of history. The Egyptians, Turks, Jews, Romans, Arabs, Persians, Europeans; the list goes on none with any degree of long-term success.

From all this turmoil, there are lessons to be learned, especially for the U.S. First, make a massive effort to become independent of Middle Eastern oil. Second, read more Kipling. In his novel, The Naulakha, he writes:

“And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased,

“And the epitaph drear: “˜A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.’”

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownla.com.

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College Friend Jim Reston Passes!

DELUSION OR COMMON SENSE IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

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