Those Crazy Kagans, America's War-Lovingest Family

But this is obviously a competitive family, and Kimberly, as the newcomer, apparently felt it necessary to dive into the family business whole-hog, no-holds-barred. So she founded her own think tank -- the Institute for the Study of War (http://understandingwar.org/). When I first looked at the website a few months ago, it seemed to be nothing more than her and some Young Republican interns. But she's beefed it up since then, adding a retired military intelligence officer (I feel an oxymoron joke coming on) and a Texas A&M Aggie -- as a former resident of Austin, the home of the University of Texas, I sneer in his general direction. The interns are still around -- Georgetown University seems to be a good place to troll for such dregs, although she also had a recent contributor from Ohio State in my hometown of Columbus. I'll be carrying a silver cross from now on, just in case.

Kimberly has lately been sharing the fruits of her studies on the Wall Street Journal's editorial page (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120718691572085211.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries), the latest titled, "The Second Iran-Iraq War" (one is never enough for a Kagan). I read it carefully, twice, searching for a single paragraph that did not contain a lie, and was about to do so a third time when I realized, "Wait a minute. This is the Wall Street Journal editorial page. If it wasn't full of lies, it wouldn't be here."

These people are a plague. But at least during the Middle Ages, they had the sense to put the so afflicted into quarantine. The Kagans are still running loose, and the toll of the innocent dead is now estimated at somewhere between 100,000 and over one million. But they're only Arabs, so who's counting?

It's worth noting that none of the Kagan biographies say a word about any of them actually serving in the military or facing the horrors of war. No, they love their wars, but from a safe distance. Washington, Brussels, and New Haven are perfectly good places to fight wars from, as far as they're concerned. Still, I bet at least one of them is a "gamer," spending spare time painting little toy soldiers in historically-authentic styles. And to this unknown Kagan, I merely say, "Take up model railroading. Please."

There's a wonderful satirical play waiting to be written about a Kagan family Christmas (I know, they're Jewish, but grant me some dramatic license). They would debate the relative merits of A-Rod and Derek Jeter, and the elder Kagan would entertain with remembrances of Joe DiMaggio, and then they would oh-so-politely and eruditely and with extreme good humor discuss their academic theories which have bankrupted the country and led to such savage destruction and so much death.

It would have to be Theater of the Absurd -- something like the nonsense plays of Eugene Ionesco, or maybe Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, where the protagonist at 69 reflects on a tape recording he made at 39, itself a reflection on his life at still younger ages. "Each can see clearly the fool he was," as one reviewer wrote, "but only time will reveal what kind of fool he has become."

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