Working The Trapline — On the Trek; Dark Horses; Counterinsurgency

An age of madness dawning…

I don’t know when this will be available for streaming in the USA, but I sure will be keeping my eye on the horizon. The Trek is billed as a a Western/Horror/Psychological Thriller set in the Kalahari Desert of South Africa in the mid-19th Century.

A group of 1846 settlers crossing the Kalahari desert descend into starvation, paranoia, and violence — under the watchful presence of supernatural desert spirits.

 

*

The capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003 is overshadowed by the mission that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, but it was an interesting operation, and it’s getting full dramatic treatment in a limited series due out on September 13.

High Value Target: The Hunt For Saddam is the story of John Nixon, the first CIA officer to interrogate Saddam Hussein… following his capture in December 2003.

Set against the backdrop of one of the most consequential military operations in recent history, the series explores the high-stakes exchanges between Nixon and Hussein.

As Nixon seeks answers from the former Iraqi leader in his search for weapons of mass destruction, he is forced to confront the far-reaching consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the ramifications that would reverberate around the world for decades to come.

Don’t know that I’ve ever mentioned it here, but if you have any interest at all in how America went to war twice with Iraq and its brutal leader, I highly recommend Steve Coll’s The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq.

With insight gained through a massive tranche of FOIA-obtained recordings of Saddam’s leadership meetings, Coll paints a picture of mutual distrust, misunderstanding, miscalculation, and hubris that led to a gross (and fatal) misstep on Saddam’s part — defending weapons of mass destruction that he did not have — and a strategic error on the part of the U.S. that embroiled us in a conflict that lasted for years beyond “Mission Accomplished” and even today continues to keep us stuck in the sand. It’s just a fantastic book, as are Coll’s two books on the Afghanistan theater — Ghost Wars and Directorate S.

*

Real Time History recently produced an excellent overview of the critical  year of in 2003-04 in the Iraq War.

Corb Lund’s Sadr City paints a picture of that war from the ground level. Packs a punch.

*

The test of a songwriter is how well his work comes across with nothing but an acoustic guitar. If you’ve got really songs, they’ll shine. Corb Lund has songs, by Crom! The newly released Dark Horses collection demonstrates it.

Throughout 2025, New West Records has been releasing limited edition vinyl reissues of Corb Lund’s back catalog as part of the Corb Lund Dark Horses Club. Each installment featured bonus tracks, previously unreleased material, and an exclusive acoustic track available only digitally. Now, as the series reaches its culmination, New West Records and Corb Lund are releasing Dark Horses on both vinyl and CD.

Dark Horses is a collection of songs hand-picked by Corb from across his catalog, presented in chronological order and rerecorded as solo acoustic performances. Stripped down and intimate, these new versions offer a fresh perspective on familiar material — and the result is an illuminating listening experience that showcases the depth and craft of Corb’s songwriting.

The elegiac Especially A Paint has always been a favorite, and it’s even more poignant in this setting — with an extra verse that tips the hat to the buffalo ponies of the Plains…

The line about how you can’t keep a loop on paradise cuts me right down to the bone. Every time.

There’s something about horses, especially a paint
Whenever I see horses, it reminds me of what I ain’t
’Cause I am not your lover now and I may never be
But with a couple of pinto ponies, how things go, we’ll have to see
’Cause they’re hitched outside to the rail right now and the silver chain goes free
The saddlebags are snug right down, sugar, ride away with me

There’s something about horses, especially a paint
Whenever I see horses, I see a sadness in their face
I was too late to see the bison herds dominate the plains
And I never hunted endlessly or sang and danced for rain
I never had the war paint on, I ain’t never counted coup
And I never lost my culture, at least, brother, not the same as you

There’s something about horses, especially a paint
Whenever I see horses, I see a path I didn’t take
Well, I was raised with the West around, enough to hum the tune
But I never knew the place like the old boys did, Chinooked and Mountain Viewed
’Cause this was all a cathedral then and the cowboys, they all knew
That you can’t keep your loop on paradise, but she disappeared so soon
She disappeared so soon

*

Here’s an interview on the Rebels & Rogues podcast with David Burke, the author of Kitson’s Dirty War: Mastermind of the Dirty War in Ireland. There’s coverage of Kitson’s work in the Mau Mau Emergency in Kenya in the 1950s. Burke takes a dim view of Kitson, so take that into account, but it’s a most interesting session and worth the time if you have an interest in the development of modern counterinsurgency doctrine and techniques..

*

Lior Raz announced on Monday that Season 5 of Fauda will premier on Netflix on September 8. Fauda depicts the missions of an undercover unit in the Israeli Defense Forces — and their toll. The writers and creators had to throw out their entire season of scripts in the wake of the October 7, 2023 attacks and built a story around the fallout from that hinge point in history.

Episodes 7 and 8 deal directly and viscerally with the attacks and came with a warning when they aired in Israel earlier this summer.

*

A new short film is forthcoming on the Battle of the Nueces on August 10, 1862, when Texas Confederates attacked Unionist Germans who were attempting to flee the state.

In 1862, Confederate soldiers attacked a band of citizens who were fleeing Texas for Mexico. After the battle was over and nearly two dozen men lay dead, the Confederates murdered the captured and wounded.