Posted on 02/03/2024 4:21:41 AM PST by FarCenter
The Cardinal’s invitation was scrawled on the crumbling paper of a 1634 edition of La Gazette de France, so I knew at once that it was genuine: “Midnight on the 31st of January, below the Pont d’Alma” – the Bridge of Souls, above the entrance to the sewers of Paris, where I first held séance with Richelieu’s Ghost more than a decade ago.
I dug my waders out of an old trunk and bought a magnum of Chateau Petrus. With the Bordeaux under one arm and a spittoon under the other, I picked my way through the sedimentary levels of the Parisian netherworld, past the 19th-century brickwork to the medieval stonework and the Roman ruins deep underneath, until I reached the secret ossuary of the Carthusian monks, its walls lined with stacked bones topped by grinning skulls.
I poured the Bordeaux into the spittoon. An ectoplasmic blob of indeterminate shape inserted a gooey proboscis into the brass neck. Presently it took on the red color of a cardinal’s soutane. There stood before me the Ghost of Richelieu, humming the tune of “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.”
“Eminence,” I stammered, “why did you summon me?”
“Oh,” said the scarlet shade. “I wanted some Petrus. Now that you’re here, you may ask one question and then go away.”
I ventured, “What should the United States do about Iran?”
“That,” the Ghost of Richelieu retorted wearily, “is the wrong question.”
“What is the right question, Eminence?”
“You have already used up your question, Spengler. In life, you get only one. But, as I happen to be dead, I will allow you another. The right question, Spengler, is: What should the Americans do about the South China Sea? The United States cannot produce enough weapons to fight the Russians, let alone the Chinese. Its Ukrainian proxy has run out of artillery shells, which is as much an embarrassment as it is an inconvenience when the Russians are firing 6,000 shells a day. But Ukraine has run out of air defense missiles, so even Russia’s cheap plywood drones are hitting their targets.”
“Pardon my impertinence,” I said, “but how do you know so much about what is happening in Ukraine?”
“Stupid question! A couple of hundred Ukrainians arrive here every day.”
“But what does that mean for Iran, Eminence?”
“It means that the US military is running out of the weapons to defend its ships, not to mention commercial vessels, against obsolete anti-ship missiles and primitive Iranian drones. The American warships in the Red Sea have managed to defend themselves but not the freighters they were sent to protect from the weapons of the Houthis. And before long they will run out of munitions and will have to sail away, leaving America’s credibility to sink in their wake.”
(Much more at the link.)
“Everything happens then!” exulted the ghost. “Washington exacted Nibelungentreue from European leaders, who are hanging onto their jobs by their fingernails. The German Chancellor has an approval rating of 19% and the French President has a rating of 24%. They will not long survive the humiliation in Ukraine, and American influence will go the way of the Spanish after the Treaty of the Pyrenees. Washington repeated the stupidity of the Austrians and Spanish, who began the Thirty Years’ War with twice the population of France and the wealth of a global empire – yet I beat them! They dissipated their strength in piecemeal campaigns against my proxies – Bohemia, Denmark and Sweden – until they were exhausted.”
The saying goes: Afghanistan is where empires go to die. USA and Russia both wasted treasure, lives and international influence there in the past few decades. Now the USA empire is in decline while Russia is trying to restore its former glory. Other nations like China and Iran are waiting for both to falter so they might establish theyir own new empire.
The current Red Sea misadventure is one more example of the USA wasting its strength in missles and influence. No one is stepping up to help the USA replenish its resources and munitions- instead freeloading off the USA.
Thank you for posting.
Pieced together past, bit of humor, smidgen to facts, and a drunk walk through the sewer?
Par for France, but France is a long way from the South China Sea.
Unfortunately, the US military is certainly depleting it’s military warehouse and also our tested troop levels. Recruits are hard to come by when idiots run a military. The good officers retired in disgust, the freaks were promoted to Flag level, and the world is laughing at our demise.
President Trump, along with the flaws that all men have, would end this. He understands “enemies both foreign and domestic”. He has been deceived by staff more than any president in my lifetime. Not because he is not aware, but because of the huge number of bought internal Traitors in the Fed Gov.
A lot rides on November 2024.
May God Bless the USA. May God Bless Texas.
As Raisi said, all we did was ‘bully’ them...
We must destroy our enemies before we run out of ammo...
BTW that was England problem in the Colonies...
Their ammo, supplies and supply lines from 3,000 miles away...
They got bogged down looking after refugees who had fled to Canada...
They had to buy baby bonnets and ladies petticoats and feed and house thousands of civilians in 12 major refugee camps around Montreal...
It was the cost but it was also the space all the extra supplies took up in the wooden ships...
If instead those spaces were taken up by weapons and uniforms and food for soldiers only, England would have won the American Revolution...
Now we have millions of phony ‘refugees’ we have to feed and house and these arent our own citizens with a right to our help as the women and children from the lower 13 were....
Post written by Spengler, February 2, 2024
***where I first held séance with Richelieu’s Ghost more than a decade ago. ****
I stopped reading at this line. Nonsense.
It’s in the “Bloggers and Personal” forum under the topic “Humor”.
I stopped reading at this line. Nonsense.
He is joking you know. He is using the *ghost* of Cardinal Richelieu as a ventriloquist dummy, to express his own thoughts about America's efforts in the Red Sea, Ukraine and the South China sea.
Richelieu is just a prop to voice his own thoughts on America's military engagements around the world, and he makes some very good points.
I found it to be an amusing and creative way to explain how we are making some dumb mistakes.
I have read "Spengler" before, and the man is an absolute genius.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.