Today is Rudyard Kipling‘s birthday, b. 1835, d. 1936. This quotation seems appropriate to our times:

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.
Ballad of East and West.

I’m still reading Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. So far, my favorite quotation from GoA is this:

A question that Wilson asked of Foch during his second visit in January 1910, evoked an answer which expressed in one sentence the problem with the alliance with England, as the French saw it.
“What is the smallest British military force that would be of any practical assitance to you?” Wilson asked.
Like a rapier flash came Foch’s reply, “A single British soldier–and we will see to it that he is killed.”

This might be a good strategy to use with regard to the French and Germans in Iraq. Unfortunately, “honor” is a rather quaint term these days, and avenging one’s countryman is out of fashion. If a single French or German soldier were killed in Iraq, I have a feeling that the French or the Germans would do two things: (1) run as fast and far as they could and (2) blame the Americans for not having provided enough security.