Paths of Glory
Thetragedy is that the grandstanding of Pelosi and the avarice of Hunter Biden and Clown Prince Zelensky drags countless millions of Faithful Hussarsinto war’s abyss.
If there is any glory in war, it belongs not to Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden or their Zelensky puppet but to nobler souls like August Landmesser, Alina Lipp, Édith Piaf, Princess Alice of Battenberg, Princess Anni-Frid Reuss (Dowager Countess of Plauen aka Anni-Frid Lyngstad), Graham Greene’s anonymous whisky priest, Hugh Thompson Jnr, Alexander Prokhorenko , Khaled al Asaad, Seymour Hersh, Julian Assange and all like them.
Who could not but love Édith Piaf, France’s little sparrow, whose sight was saved by her grandmother’s prostitutes pooling their resources to accompany her on a pilgrimage honouring Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, that angel who sang for German soldiers in French brothels during the War, but who was deservedly given Paris’ largest ever funeral? And Abba’s Anni-Frid Lyngstad, now known as Princess Anni-Frid Reuss, who had a horrific Norwegian childhood because her German father had served in Hitler’s Wehrmacht.
And Princess Alice, Queen Elizabeth’s mother in law, who sheltered Jews during the Greek Occupation and who is deservedly buried in Jerusalem’s Russian Cathedral of Mary Magdalene.
And let’s not forget the warriors, heroes like Russia’s Alexander Prohorenko who, near to where Khaled al Asaad was likewise martyred for the same holy cause, called in an air strike on himself to save the honor of his flag and his country. And America’s Hugh Thompson Jnr, who exposed America’s My Lai war crime and who was relentlessly persecuted by his compatriots as a consequence of him being human.
And then there is Seymour Hersh, one of a tiny band of journalistic brothers with a conscience. And August Landmesser, whose pure, untarnished love for his Jewish betrothed saw him die fighting in a Wehrmacht penal battalion.
And so many more, who may have pondered Hamlet’s famous soliloquy of “Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?”
These little, all but forgotten ones, who lived, loved, suffered and died are history’s lodestars, history’s heroes who are remembered most by those blessed to have loved them in life, as well as in death.
Though theirs is indeed, the kingdom, the power and the glory, what are we to make of their persecutors, those sawn off Caligulas whose mere presence defiles our common planet? Of Zelensky who, when his penis is not playing the piano for his oligarchs, is dragooning young (and not so young) Ukrainian men into a mincer that serves only to enrich him, Hunter Biden and Nancy Pelosi, who knows as little about the geography of Taiwan than incoming British buffoon Liz Truss does of Russia or Ukraine. Far better for now to be like Hamlet, to prevaricate and let the U.S. 7th Fleet allow that blood thirsty old hag bestride the narrow world like a Colossus.
Although it would be a waste of breath to point out that Matsu, Kinmen and other Taiwanese islands lie much closer to mainland China than they do to Taipei, and that Pelosi’s husband is a major player in Taiwan’s semi conductor industry, that would be to miss our main point about this octogenarian war monger and other doddering American capos like the dithering Joe Biden.
And what of us, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers? What are we to make of this petty pace where conscience doth make cowards of us all?
Questions for the ages, our own included and ones Gray’s Elegy addressed and Paths of Glory, Stanley Kubrik’s 1957 anti war classic, builds upon. Although Revelations gives us hope that these anti Christs will get their comeuppance, it is decidedly sketchy when it comes to explaining how precisely Pelosi and the Bidens can be caged wherever it is that anti Christs belong. But so too is Paths of Glory, which tells the story of how France’s own officers betrayed their men in The Great War just as Zelensky and Vogue’s photographers insult those forced to die for their venal vanities.
Although such themes of betrayal and stolen valor are both timeless and universal and Paths of Glory’s motif found it banned in all United States domestic and overseas military establishments, it has particular resonance in Ukraine, whose corrupt leaders are in venality and self advancement leagues of their own. Although Gray’s Elegy, referring to these creatures, tells us
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
The tragedy is that the grandstanding of Pelosi (who has the entire American 7th Fleet at her disposal to stoke her vanity), and the avarice of Hunter Biden and Clown Prince Zelensky drags countless millions of Faithful Hussars into war’s abyss. And, though we should give thanks for the literature and whatever other little good may spring from their war crimes, we need a way to end all that and to send Pelosi, the Bidens and the Zelenskys into some silenced void from where they, their fellow anti Christs and their stolen valor can do no more harm.
