Podcasts, videos, books and tweets of the week 39
Grifter gonna grift
Grifter and not books of the week
What’s the term for stolen valor but when you do it to a nation?
His booklet contains such gems as drink your own urine. And don’t shit in your bunker, but go 200m away. During urban warfare. Where that could be a trip of a day.
John Spencer has never fought a war as a defender. His achievements are building a ghetto with concrete Lego bricks in Bagdad. The people he ‘defeated’ are now the government of Iraq.
This is the sort of nonsense he writes:
Artillery has killed the majority of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers. It has flattened a major city, Mariupol.
Spencer steals Ukrainian valor and is a war grifter.
Did I mention his publications include chapters in gems like:
- “What the Walls of Westeros Teach Us about War and Warfare,” in Winning Westeros: How Game of Thrones Explains Modern Military Conflict (Potomac Books, 2019).
- “Why the Jedi Won Fights, Not Wars,” in Strategy Strikes Back: How Star Wars Explains Modern Conflict (Potomac Books, 2018).
He is also the author of more serious works which include one with a war crime in the title: “Why Militaries Must Destroy Cities to Save Them,” Modern War Institute, November 8, 2018. He’s also referring to the war crime creed of destroy a village to save a village.
I hate having to add links to his junk because that will boost his web presence but I hate not sourcing my vitriol.
As a reminder, this is one of the first Fallout posts:
We respect artillery.
Because we might not be veterans of a lost war, but we know it kills and destroys and rules the battlefield.
And we don’t take lightly the death of cities.
Budd of the week
Obvious choice.
Video of the week
Another less offensive grifter
Book of the week
Buy it and read it.
In our book
I cover how this Russian nonsense is a repeat of US nonsense regarding Taliban POWs.
America did not commit genocide in Iraq or Afghanistan. But Putin is using the same illegal excuses for his crimes against the rules of war.
The original Ukrainian biolabs nonsense.
PS as an example of how tone deaf and frankly imperial the American presence in Iraq was, the Lego ghetto brick models they used were named after American states. If a line of ‘Texas’ bricks had appeared on my street cutting me off from my neighbors, I might also decide to take up arms against the great Satan.
PPS Putin is far worse. This rant is brought to you simply because of John Spencer marketing and grift.
PPPS Well Sadr isn’t a power broker anymore or he is, whatever. Saddam was worse. But Spencer didn’t build peace or defeat his enemy.
