Outrageous Malfunction

John Jay has written an excellent series of articles called “The MSM misses the bout”: parts one, two, and three. He starts with a provocative point:

Take a look at the early 1960s, for example. If one is to go by the Boomer nostalgia for the period, the assassination of Kennedy is the watershed event for the period. In fact, the most likely (and I do not presume to have the final world on this) candidate for the seminal event of 1960 – 1964 is Kennedy’s commitment of troops to Vietnam. From this flowed a tremendous amount of history, and not just the further commitments of LBJ and the subsequent social upheaval in the US. If the officers I talked to in the late Soviet period are correct, the Vietnam War bankrupted the Soviet Union.

Further on:

But at the time, what were the great news stories, which still to a large extent dominate the thinking of historians about the period of 1960 – 1964? The assassination. The Bay of Pigs. Camelot. Useless drivel and a distraction to the serious study of history.

John then argues the most pivotal battle of World War II was one you have most likely never heard of:

“I remember well how, in the spring and summer of 1939, my curiosity was gripped by short newspaper accounts of an undeclared war that was raging between the Japanese and Soviet armies on a desolate stretch of disputed frontier lying between the client states of Manchukuo and Outer Mongolia.”

– Alvin D. Coox, Nomonhan

That battle, Nomonhan or Khalkhin Gol, depending on your perspective , was a watershed in the global conflict that rivaled its contemporary event, the invasion of Poland, in its significance:

All of this in terms of preface to his central thesis: what is most important is often not visible (at the time) in the media. If you recall (and I only have a fuzzy memory of it myself), there was a missing 727 somewhere in Africa after 11 September. John details the work of one man, Viktor Bout, and his behind-the-scenes lubrication of many of the armed conflicts since 11 September. Bout is either an arm of Soviet policy, taking money from all sides of all conflicts (including both sides of the Iraq war); a drug and arms smuggler working without explicit or implicit support of any state; or somewhere in between. I won’t steal John’s thunder; hopefully, you’ll find all three articles worth your time to read.