feat: Add Dept of Skirmishes blog post and PBJ video

PhiloJazz satire on the DoD→DoW rename + "there is no war" contradiction.
Includes embedded PBJ video (WebM), Excalidraw nameplate feature image, and Instagram post copy.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Author: 2 people

content/blogs/2026-03-24-dept-of-skirmishes.md

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+---
+title: "The Department of Skirmishes"
+date: 2026-03-24
+draft: false
+tags: ["politics", "satire", "pushback-jack"]
+description: "They renamed it back to the Department of War. They're bombing Iran. There is no war."
+featureimage: "/images/dept-of-skirmishes.webp"
+---
+
+[![](/images/dept-of-skirmishes.webp)](/images/dept-of-skirmishes.webp)
+
+The Pentagon has a new name.
+
+Well, an old name. The Department of Defense is now officially the Department of War again.
+
+They brought it back.
+
+In 1947, when the original Department of War got absorbed into the National Security Act, somebody decided the word "War" sounded a little on the nose. Too blunt. Not the vibe for a country that had just finished one and was quietly preparing for several more. So they softened it. The Department of Defense. That sounds measured. Responsible. *Reluctant*, even.
+
+For seventy-seven years, the sign said Defense.
+
+Now it says War.
+
+Except: we are currently bombing Iran. And Congress is reading the Constitution aloud — the part where it says only Congress can declare war. And the freshly-renamed Department of War is telling Congress, with the particular confidence of someone who has done this before, that there is no war.
+
+We're not at war.
+
+We're just bombing things. Near a war. In the general vicinity of a war. Participating in various war-adjacent activities. Skirmishes. Operations. Precision actions. Strikes. But not *war*.
+
+War is a word with consequences. War requires authorization. War involves Congress, which is slow and loud and tends to ask follow-up questions. A skirmish, though — a skirmish is nimbler. More flexible. You can have a skirmish on a Tuesday and nobody has to vote on anything.
+
+It's a long tradition, this.
+
+Every generation finds new language for the thing it doesn't want to name. We didn't lose in Vietnam — we had a drawdown. We didn't torture anyone — we used enhanced interrogation. We weren't at war with Iraq — we were engaged in operations. The words change. The explosions don't.
+
+What I can't quite figure out is the sequence here. They brought *War* back into the name — presumably because the current administration thinks "War" sounds strong, decisive, serious. And simultaneously, their department is arguing there is no war.
+
+You can't hang the sign that says **War** and then turn to Congress and say there's nothing to see here.
+
+Unless the plan is that the name is just a vibe. An aesthetic. Not a definition.
+
+In which case, I have a modest suggestion for the next rename.
+
+---
+
+*Pushback Jack had some thoughts.*
+
+<div style="max-width: 720px; margin: 2rem auto;">
+  <video controls width="100%" style="border-radius: 4px;">
+    <source src="/videos/pbj-dept-of-skirmishes.webm" type="video/webm">
+    Your browser doesn't support video playback.
+  </video>
+</div>
+
+The Department of Skirmishes is right there. Honest, accurate, and somehow still better than what we've got.