The Hobbit is one of those childhood stories we think about as a grand adventure, but what we don't take into account is how Bilbo lived his life AFTER the war.

This is some philosophical rambling about the nature of the Veteran, so forgive me if I state truths that would have been obvious to any reader of the Lord of the Rings upon first publishing, but modern disconnect from the war experience has relegated to the "Footnotes" category.

Assuming Trump bombs Syria, which appears to be likely, what will/can Russia do?
Plenty. What's more, they seem willing to respond.

This post will be quite short because instead of writing, I prefer the readers to watch this Blackstone Intelligence video (no relation to Blackwater). 24 minutes

Brief synopsis:

1. Russia urges 24 hours be allotted for international experts in chemical warfare be allowed to examine Douma

2. Trump marshaling large naval taskforce off coast of Syria, some ships within 100 km of Russian base.

3. France eager to get in on the action

All the cool and popular kids are bombing Syria these days, so the less cool kids want to be involved as well.
France hasn't bombed Syria since it was cool more than two generations ago. They are teaming up with the less than cool Saudis.

I'm not sure this is 100% true, but it sounds believable.

I was reading the article Why American lives matter most, about our long history of racism and narcissism in wars, when I got pissed off and googled "price of life paid compensation".
I was surprised by how well documented this idea is.

To be fair, not all lives are worth the same.