I am against war.

                  This statement may feel bromidic, but based on what Carll tells me, humans seem to favor the activity. Dogs – and I think I can speak for the species – find war idiotic. Why organize to seize territory you don’t need, risking lives and costing a bundle, when you can live in peace? The Nameless One’s recent escapade in Iran seems to have cost the country eighty billion plus a whole lot of lives, not to mention, Carll tells me, jacking the price of gas for everybody always. If that’s smart, enlist me proudly with the stupids. You can buy a lot of treats for eighty billion.

                  I do not doubt humans’ brains are cleverer than dogs’. We could never have invented the smart phone. Whether the world is bettered by that device is a question I leave to ponderers, but for sure it’s clever.

                  Why then do such smart animals engage in such dopey self-destructive behavior?

                  Humans insist – have since Cain caned Abel – that they never commence a war, it’s always the other guy, and they are only taking up arms in self-defense. Dogs don’t fuss with worthless words. If one of our kind behaves unsociably – bullying, grabbing other’s chow, causing a ruckus – and yes, some do – we avoid them, for starters. If that doesn’t work, we correct them, with a growl or fang-show or air snap, so they know in no uncertain terms, to knock it off. If that doesn’t work, we gang up on them, even evicting them, so they go bother somebody else or starve. We don’t judge or bellyache, we take care of, collectively, problem solved, because we realize, the whole species, that wars only make things worse. That’s how stupid we are.

                  My theory about humans’ warmongering is they’ve thought themselves into a snit. No one likes feeling worse, weaker, lesser, poorer, which is why dogs don’t. “Comparisons,” as Shakespeare put it (Much Ado, Act 3, Scene 5), “are odorous.” If you don’t want to feel bad about yourself, don’t entertain the idea of “bad.” You’re only inferior if you think you are. If you’re AOK – in my case, perfect in every respect – why trouble yourself for more?

                  Warmongering, thus, demonstrates the inferiority it seeks to allay. This guy Hegseth Carll keeps muttering about must feel like crap deep down, with all his strutting and bow-wowing. Maybe his mommy didn’t love him (who can blame her?). Whatever his beef, being buff ain’t the fix.

                  Wars are not always wrong. Sometimes the other guy does start it and one must whack them to make them stop. Humans lack the collective wisdom of canines. But to seek war is sick – and evidence of weakness. Jesus said to turn the other cheek. I’m a big admirer of Jesus, but this one he got wrong. Turn the other cheek and you may get smooshed. No dice.

                  Carll yammers about morality. Who needs morality if you’ve got common sense? One might argue – not to diminish my master’s self-importance – that morality is nothing more than common sense. Of course you do not kill, cheat, lie, abuse, brutalize or otherwise bruise. Whoever could imagine otherwise!

                  I’m expecting humans to outsmart themselves. Not tomorrow maybe, but eventually they’re going to talk themselves into terminal stupidity. You might think, after these millennia, they’d make some progress toward self-preservation, but while their gizmos and gadgets get cleverer, their wars get more deadly. What other species could conceive of genocide!

                  I’d fret about this if fretting was my m.o., but I’m way too smart to think. I’m only setting down these truisms because Carll asked me to.