Just stuff
I hope to convey my impressions of some books I am currently reading over the next two weeks. They are:
- The Shield of Achilles by Philip Bobbitt
- Six Days of War by Michael Oren
- The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis
- No True Glory by Bing West
- Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett
This snippet from WH Auden cited in the Shield of Achilles seemed written for Ilan Halimi and those who killed and tortured him, and not incidentally for the Bing West's description of the Blackwater contractors whose bodies were desecrated by children as their elders egged them on.
The mass and majesty of this world, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
And could not hope for help and no help came:
What their foes liked to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst one could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died ...A ragged urchin, aimless and alone
Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.
posted by wretchardthecat at 2/26/2006 11:35:00 PM
146 Comments:
I respectfully disagree with raymondw's assessment of The Cold War. It was what it was, which is a short, generalizing, thematic history of the conflict. For me, at least, it synthesized the history of the period pretty coherently. It was, in effect, the Cliff's Notes of the Cold War, and in that regard pretty useful. Not brilliant, not free from points we were argue with, but quite a bit better than "sucked". In my opinion.
On the other hand, I absolutely agree with Raymond on the Six Days of War. It is riveting stuff.
Coincidentally, I put up a post last night on a snippet from Bobbitt's book. It is very interesting, but not a breezy read. I will confess that I am working my way through it very slowly, learning a lot as I go, but without relishing my next opportunity to pick it up.
tigerhawk,
I'm on chapter 4 now. A very erudite book. Two assretions strike me as requiring more checking. His drivers of history -- the interplay between war and the state -- account for much but they do not account for all. And I don't think he makes so large a claim. The second assertion is the idea that great power in "market state" hands will necessarily provide advantages for nontraditional state actors. Why is not possible, in principle, for Islamic terrorist groups to face other terrorist groups? What prevents it in principle?
Just some thoughts.
BTW, a lot of that reading list came from browsing your site and Chester's too.
Oren's book will fill you with worthless actual facts....
Since he does not try to distort but actually tell a story based on archives and actual events it has no business in the modern day islamic/palestinian construct....
Oren should be ashamed of this "so called" book, not one "allah akbar" does he print nor does he express proper rage that palestinians feel about having to share their historic lands of Judea and Samaria with Jews. After all how could one ever think JEWS have any rights to live in the Judan Hills....
Again Oren takes facts and flings them at loudly screamed fiction, how dare he?
But given that Bobbitt's book is a very large scale survey of history I suppose these are niggling quibbles.
One might suggest, "The Dawnbreakers" by Nabil.
It will illuminate the peculiar disease now manifest in the 'Muslim' communities.
And "Fire on the Mountain Tops", by William Sears!
The political ab-response by those kings and rulers who held the bulk of power in their hands... and refused to deal justly with their subjects, 130 years ago, and into today!
Wretchard,
By chance I have read the first four books, but not the fifth.
Being trained in molecular biology and biology, I have read plenty on Darwin. Perhaps you'll persuade me, though, to take a look at that fifth book.
;-)
Jamie Irons
I am absolutely thrilled that someone else is reading The Shield of Achilles. If you can polish that off in 2 weeks, you are a better man than me. I have a much-thumbed copy with underlines and notes throughout and have continually referred to it for the past two years.
Thanks for the plug, BTW.
As to your take that some of your initial reactions to Shield of Achilles might be "quibbles":
The first few pages have so many positive quotes for the book from reviews that I purposefully set out some time ago to find a negative review.
I found one, from a historian in Europe, if memory serves, who took issue with some of Bobbitt's characterizations of "territorial-states" and "kingly-states." I'll find this article again and post a link on my site at some point.
Overall though, I didn't think that detracted too much from the force of the argument. I think Bobbitt makes a case for the market state whether he is describing it as history has determined it to be, or whether he is making a case for its evolution on its merits. Two different approaches of interpretation, but either one seems to work: The market state is the natural evolution of strategy and law over centuries (his argument), or the market state is a good idea for organizing society because it makes sense (my counter to critics of his argument).
What a beautiful and awful poem--thanks for introducing it to me.
Wretchard,
I don't have Oren's book at hand, but one of the things that struck me when I read it was how "mild" some of the early Palestinian terror attacks on Israel in the mid 1960s were, yet how shocked people were by them. We are now so inured to atrocity, similar attacks today probably wouldn't even get into the papers. The arc of atrocity is such that perhaps in a few years we won't think much of a nuke going off here and there every so often.
Also Oren makes mention of a war that was going on in Yemen between Egypt and Saudi Arabia in the period just before the Six Day War. He doesn't make very clear what that was about and I was too lazy to research. But it did make me think it would be interesting to list every war involving a Muslim state since 1948, showing opponents and casualties. How many Muslims have died in wars with other Muslims? How many with Christians, with Hindus, with Communists, and of course with Jews? I bet the Muslim on Muslim numbers are the highest.
Re: JL Gaddis' Cold War
It's a fast read. Some of his earlier works are better. I was hoping for more on Kennan and the inside details on the West's strategic response. I was disappointed in his use of a (preemptive) nuclear scenario (Korean war) to justify Kennan's containment. The USSR lacked a viable (survivable) strategic nuclear threat against the U.S. until the mid 60s, and up until the late 50s would have had to invade to be able to use short range aircraft and artillery to deliver WMD against even (Western) European targets.
It's only been 15 years since the end of the cold war, so we've a while to wait (another 20-30 years) to see a dispassionate analysis of Kennan's policies v. the U.S. (current) belief in the preemptive use of force (as reflected in the National Security Strategy). I believe that Gaddis has it exactly wrong in his Korean war scenario. Like any bully the communists would have quickly collapsed from the rotten head(s) down, given any Western offensive response to numerous provocations (starting with Berlin) or local insurrections in support of liberty (Czechoslovakia, etc.). Unfortunately the West lacked the insight (and fortitude) to see how many people these utopian totalitarians would waste (over 1 billion non-productive lives) and sacrifice (~100 million). All we needed to win the cold war early was the will to win, and the (terrible) sacrifice of perhaps a million to save a billion.
I fear our sins of omission have damned us, given future catastrophes are guaranteed. Somewhere in the millions of holocaust victims and the billions of lives ruined by these totalitarians was the next Einstein or Pasteur who might just have saved mankind from our next extinction event. If the Mitochondrial Eve story holds up, it appears something killed off most all of us less than two hundred thousand years ago.. Where it's clear that no amount of central planning and utopian redistribution can match the innovation, productivity and wealth created by free enterprise under freedom. It's amazing how a random walk and markets always beats our best minds, and is our best insurance for surviving both as individuals and a species.
Imagine fighting under a banner that says "for (mankind's) individual liberty, responsibility, and free enterprise."
Doesn't quite do it, does it?
Sigh.
OT, but re Willaim Manchester, his Pacific-island combat memoir "Goodbye Darkness" is simply one of the best (IMHO) books ever written--on WWII, and human nature itself.
Well chosen. I would also recommend:
The Naturalness of Religion, by Robert McCauley (.pdf), and The Language Instinct, by Steven Pinker (Amazon link), to supplement Dennett's analysis of memetic transmission and evolution.
Also, this C-span interview with Mr. Oren about "Six Days of War.", and This interview with Bing West...
Here are some Dennett essay's available online:
Intentional Systems, by Dennett.
Time and the Observer: The Where and When of Consciousness in the Brain, by Dennett and Kinsbourne
And, last but certainly not least, Quining Qualia, by Dennett (I am particularly partial to this essay: it is what I wrote my senior thesis on).
To add onto the Pinker book, here is his essay Natural Language and Natural Selection, available online.
pds,
I LOVED Oren's book...
I was being sarcastic....
Blogonaut said...
war between egypt and yemen? i think you will find that there was wmd used...
That's the case for the impossibility of altruism, alright--until one asks why people would observe these behaviors for ten thousand years, and then write the observations as soon as they had hold of writing.
Darwin's Dangerous Idea was very good. It has some very good models of how to think in that particular field. Darwin's Blind Spot is also an interesting book.
The game theory stuff Richard mentions above is covered very well in the book Thinking Strategically. I keep a reading list of similar books on my blog.
...and by the way, an extremely good read about collecting data, applying the scientific method, and general rationality is in Charle's Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle just in case you haven't read it yet.
You will find an interesting and informative video interview of Daniel Dennett here.
Other good interviews on the meaning and source of spirituality also.
Michael Yon is on Hugh Hewitt
830 KRLA.com
...back to Iraq
Look forward for you to tear him apart, Opotho.
I got a bad "vibe" just reading the book reviews.
Are you the other guy here that hates the word memes?
...I always thought the English language was doing just fine w/o it.
"Those are our choices? God help us"
---
I was planning on just skipping it, but now I'll be back to see you unload!
hey, Whit:
go to www830Krla.com it's live there.
http://www2.krla870.com/listen/
...too late, but hewitt is there daily!
Whit 3:29 PM,
Amen: Pop Everything.
Real Science and the history of it suffers.
Since it is so personal, many say don't give art as a gift. I'm not sure if books count.
Civilization and its Enemies by Harris is brilliant. I have to confess I can not read most political books.
The Worthing Saga by Card may be my favourite book of all time. With that said I've only recently learned how much that book is based on Asimov's Foundation series.
Bill Roggio is up next on Hewitt.
URL is above - KRLA.
"We'll leave last week's murders in Nigeria out of it for now... "
---
We'll also leave out the big Dubai Businessman that had humungous Illegal deals with Saddam, but was never prosecuted.
Also numerous instances of "Golden Chain" money laundering.
Not intending to troll but this book, Marooned is simply outstanding (and an interesting comparison of the times back then):
Marooned: Being a narrative of the sufferings and adventures of Captain Charles H. Barnard, embracing an account of the seizure of his vessel at the Falkland Islands, & c., 1812-1816
Wikipedia says:
Captain Charles Barnard (1781–c.1840) was a famous castaway.
In 1812 the British ship Isabella, captained by George Higton, is shipwrecked off Eagle Island (part of the Falkland Islands). Most of the crew are rescued by the American sealer Nanina, commanded by Captain Charles Barnard. However, realising that they would require more provisions for the expanded number of passengers, Barnard and a few others went out in a party to retrieve more food. During his absence the Nanina was taken over by the British crew and left them on the island.
------
[Barnard, an American, had his ship] taken over by the British crew [who left him as they were].
He rescued a group of British castaways who then left him and some crew to the same fate they were saved from (war of 1812 was a factor). A great story even better than Shackelton.
"A great story even better than Shackelton."
---
Har, Har! Surely you jest?
OK, I recommend: "ENDURANCE,"
about Shackelton!
I'm telling you Doug, find the Barnard book. I bet most people know nothing of Shackelton. The Endurance was a failure turned into success.
We need to look at what we have and then compare it to 1. what is possible (what we are capable of) and compare it to 2. what is hopeless and beyond control.
I won't even mention Steven Callaghan and what he made it through during his 76 days adrift. /Ooops.
Fox ran some video of the Belfast riots, and the street scenes looked bad--chaotic, mean, fluid. I don't get it, hungry bears and wolves are crowding outside the door, and in the kitchen the Bickersons are still shouting away at each other over some household tiff. Reminds me of the Philippine crisis, not to mention the direction of our own opposition party. from Belfast to Manila to DC, we better wake up.
Let me know when you get Ed Flanders figured out, Opotho. The born-again Evangelist who seems so goofy, yet is undeniably on a spiritual high and utterly unshakeable in his faith.
But worldly Homer and Marge are doing okay, too, sticking together through thick and thin, raising the kids and enjoying life.
Odd, but that argument has gone on for years among my extended family. We're Protestants but both sisters married Catholics, and 'whether or not Simpsons is right for kids' breaks cleanly along that line. Had this thread not turned as it did, I'd've never realized that odd fact.
I guess Papal authority must radiate downward through the flock, and someone like Bart continually nailing his theses to doors, is not reflective of the vision of family. and it's not traditional, to be sure--Bart is modernist to the quick.
My dog is like Santa's Little Helper on Ritalin. If I had a Korean friend my problem might go away.
Is it possible that ill Kim of North Korea is more sane than what's his name in Iran? /Must Stop Random Thoughts/
...-* ouch.
And always the same age--like Leopold Bloom. No wonder the show strikes a chord for ya--:)
Meaning that like the long day of Leopold Bloom, "the troubles" have been a long day for the Irish, with so much always in the detailia, riding on the intricacies of form. Or so it seems to an outsider, to whom 'the troubles' are well-nigh inexplicable. Such a conflict, and among English-speaking Christians, has--as you say--no "handle".
Funny, i hadn't read your 'water closet' post when i posted the 'handle' -- but the handle of a water closet is precisely what 'the troubles' requires. A cleansing flush, with the entire contents to disappear from sensory range, and to be spoken of, if at all, only in private from now on.
I guess that's not a very good image for heartfelt emotions. And that's the problem. The Palestinian conflict, with the different alphabets and ways of thinking, could never be just flushed away--but somehow it seems the Irish troubles could, with a leap of faith, and need only the will to take ahold.
The Godfather of conservatism, William F. Buckley, has lowered the flag to half-mast aboard the flagship National Review:
"One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed."
http://nationalreview.com/buckley/buckley200602241451.asp
For me, this concludes a long and often worthwhile debate with some Belmonters about the wisdom of the Iraq War and conservative values. We are left now with Buckley's "internal problem" as to where that failure leads.
Pace.
I know I'm way oversimplifying--but, as the G. Meyer interview notes, the overly-simple--the oblivious--are always finding delight in small things, and passing a tolerable life that way.
Buddy and Opotho,
What a fascinating, learned conversation.
Long ago while doing my postgraduate training at UCLA med, I was friends, through her husband, with Fionnula Flanagan, a lovely and brilliant actress (last seen, I believe, in "Waking Ned Devine") who wrote and performed a one-woman play under the direction of Burgess Meredith (IIRC), called "James Joyce's Women." I thought it was a tour de force.
Opotho, forgive the personal remark but I am finding myself (I think) understanding your commentary much better lately.
I am very sorry for the problems in Ireland, a country whose people I greatly admire.
Jamie Irons
One toke over the line for Bill Buckley.
He was a great man of letters.
I'm looking forward to Six Days of War and Cold War myself, I read recently read one of West's books on counter-insurgency, was heavy stuff.
Doug, saw your stuff on a previous thread about the schools, didn't really have the time to respond but my school is obviously a weird case so not representative. Truepeers, if you want a back-copy of the Cornell West article I might be able to get it for you.
Still dealing with applications for Grad school, so sometimes it takes me a while to respond.
Though after seeing this I'm wondering if I should just say to hell with it and head for Afghanistan.
Let's all go. The Abraham Limping Brigade.
I'm an ID'er myself. Just as inorganic chemistry seems to come down to irreducible implicity in which something comes from nothing in the big bang...just so
organic chemistry seems to come down to irreducible complexity in the language of the genetic code, the machinery of cells and the body designs of the cambrian explosion.
Recently 500 scientists came came out against darwin. There were no palentologists in the lot. But the group was stuffed with geneticists biologists physicistsand mathematicians from four continents.
http://www.physorg.com/news11005.html
http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org
irreducible implicity=irreducible simplicity
Cutler,
Doesn't say very much about our country and it's people that we allow stuff like that to go on every day.
Hewitt was describing how Summers' incident was much ado over not very much and how Harvard wouldn't be harmed since they always have far more than enough students etc.
Needless to say I was shocked to hear that:
I guess just because someone can be forced out for taking a stand for free speech while incompetents are retained as a reward for toeing the party line is no big deal anymore.
If there was any justice, instead of carrying an AR in Afghanistan, you could use it to clean out the faculty at those cesspools.
I thought Buckley's piece was a thoroughly shoddy piece of work.
Walking Away From the Brink
Important Iraq Piece on National Review
Not a negative piece, but here's the worst news:
"The interior ministry, which runs the police, has become a hiring program for the Badr Brigade, the paramilitary wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) party. The ministry is a rat's nest of death squads and torture cells." (Iran aids in this, of course.)
Wonder if the Generals neglected to tell VDH about that?
A pollster type e-mails about the new CBS presidential #s:
I'm pretty livid after reading the latest CBS poll, which shows POTUS ata record low job approval, and VPOTUS in the teens.
Please check out page 18 of the pdf file that tallies up the poll.
This page includes the frequency data.
Note the respective numbers of Republicans and Democrats:
GOPers: 272 (weighted up to 289)
DEMs: 409 (weighted down to 381)
INDs: 337 (weighted up to 348)
-Corner
Now you've done it. I'm going to have to dig up a Bible and find the part about JC and the boys tearing through Jerusalem with their scimitars. I missed it first read.
opotho:
your roots are showing
I'm no expert on the Troubles but I suspect that it may have had something to do with the Irish discontent in playing serf to their English barons.
It's the maps. Green, with that irritating red spot on top and to the right.
Gotta hand it to Keegan. For years, so-called "Military History" was sorta in the back of the bookstore, interested readers were suspect--the crypto fascisti fringe.
Keegan said "military history *IS* history" --and he backed it up with his own excellence. "Face of Battle" concentrating as it does on the ordinary soldier's POV in three great battles, Somme, Waterloo, and one of Alexander's (Issus?), is groundbreaking in scholarship and accessibility.
Henry VIII should be cartooned.
Do these equivalencies absolve, rationalize and justify the barbarism I see being practiced by Salafists/Wahabbists today?
The Troubles--since they date from Henry VIII, must now keep going because they keep going.
Surely it's what happened just yesterday (rather than what happened centuries ago) that feeds the fire..?
Fatalism creates itself.
But one can't both decry and exemplify the same thing simultaneously--that's what "driving oneself mad" is all about.
One must think about 'taking a position' on optimism--that "optimism" is a force unto itself, which alone can create the hope that alone can drive out the hopelessness.
And then even if it still fails, then another old phrase applies, "fought the good fight".
Polyanna I ain't--just another PoMo-poisoned prisoner locked in mortal combat with his own cynicism, a cynicism that has in the last few years taken form in the mind, complete with horns, tail, and forked tongue, and kept at bay with the only weapon at hand.
Re the fashion of pessimism, what arrogance, what self-deification, to bestow upon oneself a 'right' to never be disappointed.
6000 years ago lack of will would reach its natural conclusion almost immediately.
Those that found fault with the demands of the nature of which they were part, very soon were heard no more, and so would influence few others.
opotho said...
"Co-opting demons seems to be what the Iraqis are working on these days too. What 'Fat Lady' does reocon expect to hear when their civil war is even older than the one in Ireland?"
But you see, we were promised a bourgeois revolution in Iraq not a civil war. When me and my fellow conservatives warned about the potential for a fundamentalist power grab or civil war in Iraq back in '02, we were labeled ignorant and racist by our neocon interlocutors. Didn't we know that Iraq was largely secular, middle class and liberal? Hadn't we read all their pet theorists who proclaimed it thus? What glib deception, what deep self-deception was trafficked in to reach these conclusions.
The Iraq War and the democratic globalism of the Bush doctrine are radical notions, part of a radical ideology of "permanent revolution", not in any way conservative. Henry Hyde, William Buckley, even Fukuyama himself have awaked to this fact. The intellectual movement is already astir, after being asleep or seduced for too long. It remains to be seen what the political impact will be.
I thought this might be of interest to this group:
Exclusive: Dubai ports firm enforces Israel boycott
I find this fascinating. The implications are omenous indeed.
recon
Your rear view mirror is a bit fogged. And, by the way, there is not a civil war in Iraq.
Then it'd've been "Grisly Man".
Enscout, right, democracy radicalizes, it makes all other political forms automatically anti-democratic and anti-collectivist. That's why democracy is going to be left-wing a priori unless it has a constitution to 'conserve'. The term for what Bush is about should be 'constitutional democracy'. Sure, it may fail in Iraq--ultimately it may fail *here*, but the proper question is, does anyone have a better idea?
If its Isreal Boycott is true, then Dubai Ports is out the door.
The holocaust denier is a result of irresponsibily in some quarters of the media.
But we can't control the media without the cost being 'everything'.
So, what's the solution?
I think that people need to see themselves as personally standing in judgement. When the elites have laughed long enough, for some certain number of years, at that idea, then "everything (in Dostoyevski's phrase about the absence of God) is permitted".
I don't think the tipping point has been reached--the initial reaction of free peoples to 911 is a proof--but Dan is surely right, it's high time to sieze the initiative from the false prophets. I guess that's why we're sending these pixels off into into space, trying to support those on the front lines of politics and ordnance.
Susan Collins now takes the crown of
C BS Gold Standard in Contrary Indicators
by getting Coast Gaurd Report "Story"
onto the front pages for the Dems and MSM.
...taken totally out of context.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Opotho 8:42 AM, re POE,
It was obvious to me in High School that a bunch of the revered poets I was supposed to read were alcoholic depressives.
...but then classmates making fools of themselves on the same substance were also.
Then I went to college.
Perhaps a Drug Free University could not get away with present madnesses?
Okay, so the 21st is to be penance for the 20th. Now what?
Horowitz is discussing his new book on Dennis Prager Show.
"Universities"
...Indoctrination Centers
10:26 AM,
Choose your poison, er penance.
Ok, continuing education indoctrination centers.
"UAE boycott of Israel"
Buddy,
Are the Presby's still doing that?
Opotho,
Horowitz is discussing Nyack Bank Robbery.
Rosenberg doesn't seem any worse than inviting Taliban Leader to Yale.
Could always move to Poland. There seems to be a lack of poltical correctness, and shall I say, cultural sensitivity, going on?
The Polish Foundation of St. Benedictus introduces its "Martyrs of our Time" ad campaign this week.
Dutch Cartoon unveiling at UC Irvine tonight.
Admin trying to shut it down despite holding seminars on crimes of Israel.
CAIR invited, seat will be empty.
Muslim students threatening.
What else is new?
buddy:
Your comments are some of the most profound, lyrical and spritually uplifting I've read. Thanks for your contributions here. You should sell that stuff - really!
opotho:
There always seems to have been a remnant of faithful, observant leaders - dedicated to the truth - to preserve man's hopefulness through history. I beleive we are such.
This war is really no different than any other, really. And I know how cliche this sounds...It begins and ends within the deep thoughts of each of us. The human condition has not changed. Nor will it, nor should it.
I believe God expects us to faithfully persevere, to take all the bumps, bruises and tragedies that befall us and respond positively to life! This is our challenge now as it ever was.
To be defeated is easy - lazy - not befitting a true believer. Those that resort to thuggery, whether in Belfast or Baghdad, belong to this lot.
"You should sell that stuff - really!"
Enscout,
He won't even deign to do a Free Blog!
opotho:
We're not at odds. You just talk over my head so much that I reamin in a constant state of catch-up.
We have our own unique experience that effects how we beleive - just what you've been saying all along.
I said HOW we believe - not WHAT we believe!
Enscout, the check is in the mail, thanks!
Doug, how would doing a personal blog compare with trying to keep up with the great comment sections on these blogs already established? They be only so many hours in the day, here in Texas (don't know about Hawaii).
Opotho, other than being a nation that chose to be one, that came together in modern times by acclamation backed by contract, there's no exceptionalism to be had without it being 'felt'. And we can't feel it without living it.
Especially not with this internet causing all this writing (which alone makes most of us finally clarify our own thoughts for our own selves).
Iran's strategy in Iraq, here.
Buddy,
The Blog would be all the wisdom of the BUDtm condensed *in one place*.
As you say, there are only so many hours, some of us like to do something other than scan various blogs for the Priceless Pearls.
...or you could just hyperlink each comment to every other comment that day.
Then when you make a new comment, go back and update all the hyperlink lists, and so on...
Enscout 11:51 AM,
Opotho is Latin for
"Constantly in Opposition"
Pig Latin
Folks, I just realized something in regards to the Danish cartoons.
They would make an absolutely great addition to the Flight 93 Memorial...
doug:
Re: 12:12
LMAO
buddy:
It may be your calling.
Enscout,
He's setting up his
"Wisdom of the BUD"
blog as we speak.
Aristides
Good catch on that Michael Rubin article. Again, the Pajama crowd provides more information and insight in a single article than CNN in a whole year of sound bytes.
I take issue with Rubin's claim that the Coalition powers to be are not at least as aware as Rubin of Hezbollah's presence and activities.
I wonder how much influence the US really has in shaping the outcome. Certainly we get straight to the top tier of the Iraqi government but who knows how much gets passed down. Heck, a US President can't ever be sure whether the US State Department is implementing or frustrating administration policy.
The Small Footprint strategy is as much on trial as the Iraqi constitution. If it fails you can bet on seeing a lot more tonnage and boots in the next round.
Doug, too early for the pineapple mash, get away from the bathtub.
peterboston:
I think I'll invest in Zlotys.
Looks like they me going somewhere.
Read somewhere that a partially trained, overweight Iraqi Policeman is more valueable than a GI in the present situation:
Greater Situational awareness that only comes from being born and raised.
...this from a US Officer in Iraq.
..may be going somwhere.
jeez
Too late Bud,
I thought I was in Texas and drowned all my baby roaches.
Enscout, if you invest in 'em, then you were right the first time.
\:-D
Clinton is advertising for INTERNS at the library.
Ads include "hands on experience"
Swear to God.
Rubin stoked the neurons. The strategy and timing behind the Cartoon Infitada makes sense now. Get the ummah stoked up with a religious issue, coordinate violence across the Islamic world as a show of force, and follow it up with the high level claim that the US bombed the Golden Dome.
My guess is that Iran whats-his-name was looking for a ramp up of the Cartoon mayhem. It didn't happen. Wonder why.
A Shrine too far.
Doug, we may have a crazy person or two, but at least we don't get et by Sea Monsters every time we dip into the ocean.
Maybe you're right about that blog.
Go ahead, trifle with my Majesty.
I couldn't help myself.
Again.
That's ok. Next time, tho, it's off into the crater. Mauna Loa is hungry.
Over there Ali!
The 72 Virgins are right over that knoll.
"You mean they're in that big building packaging raisens?"
The (fire) Dancing Raisins
...packing ricin?
Radical Ricin Raisins
Sitzpinklers always want a quick withdrawal.
...probably sampled 75% Dems.
"Troops"
Didn't see that.
"As Luxenberg's work has only recently been published we must await its scholarly assessment before we can pass any judgements.
But if his analysis is correct then suicide bombers, or rather prospective martyrs, would do well to abandon their culture of death, and instead concentrate on getting laid 72 times in this world..."
They're going to have to deal with Sadr death squads also.
Nobel winning Inspector Clouseau.
PeterBoston said...
Rubin stoked the neurons. The strategy and timing behind the Cartoon Infitada makes sense now. Get the ummah stoked up with a religious issue, coordinate violence across the Islamic world as a show of force, and follow it up with the high level claim that the US bombed the Golden Dome.
My guess is that Iran whats-his-name was looking for a ramp up of the Cartoon mayhem. It didn't happen. Wonder why.
///////////////////
In order for this strategy to work the Iraquis would have to believe that the US bombed the golden dome.
How likely is that?
Not likely. The Irquis may be crazy but they're not stupid.
And we say abandoning the UN is not feasible.
UN is a better picture than it was, but it still looks 'off', with Bolton the Lion-Tamer cracking a furious whip inside a cage full of cockroaches, rats, scorpions, spiders, and rattlesnakes, all trying to hop up on the beach ball but having no legs to do it with.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
I wasn't thinking of Iraq but a continuation or ramp-up of the Cartoon Infitada morphed into the Golden Shrine Infitada in the places where stage one had already occurred.
The mullahs know they can't defeat the Leviathan head-on or even prevent the destruction of their country if it came to that.
Their best (only) defense is that the USA will continue to restrain itself. Creating dozens of little diplomatic crises that require attention buys time and provides intel about the probable location of the fractures in the West that could be exploited as Saddam did.
Look at the concurrence of events:
1. Iran kind of but not really makes a deal with the Russians about enrichment.
2. Muslims burn down embassies and create mayhem in dozens of locations.
3. The Golden Dome gets destroyed.
4. AQ attempts to disrupt Saudi oil flow.
Had AQ been successful and oil flow was disrupted while civil war was raging in Iraq and hundreds of thousands of Muslims were rioting worlwide, the mullahs could have (1) stepped in as a reasonable peace maker, or (2) ramped up the heat with more incidents.
Either way they would have enhanced their negotiating position.
In the alternative all these things happened with innocent coincidence.
Larsen Spotted on Old Stomping Grounds
Whit, why do you think he's in that wild outfit?
"I'm alive and kicking and I'm where I wanna be."
- Fats Domino
"Everything's gonna be all right, I think."
I don't think anything significant happens in Iraq without a consensus of influential tribal leaders. Even Saddam had to make deals to keep tribal leaders supplying his army with cannon fodder.
I don't have the references but I think that Fallujah One got nixed when local tribal leaders insisted they could handle AQ on their own. They agreed to Fallujah Two when it becasme obvious to them they could not.
We make a big deal about Sunni, Shia and Kurd but the major Iraqi clans and tribes have no problem mixing them all together.
I suspect that what we see as interminable delays, bone head appointments, and disappearing money is the wake of below the surface deal making with tribal leaders.
Report Offers Gloomy View of Insurgencies:
Negroponte said in his own testimony that "the threat from extremism and anti-Western militancy is especially acute in Iraq and Afghanistan." But he said there were also positive developments in Iraq, noting that insurgents "have not been able to establish any lasting territorial control" and were unable to disrupt the elections.
The veteran diplomat also said that Iraqi security forces are "making incremental progress toward operational independence" and that conflicts between Sunni extremist and nationalist insurgents are "encouraging and exploitable." He added that "large-scale Sunni participation in the last elections has provided a first step toward diminishing Sunni support for the insurgency."
Report Offers Gloomy View
I guess there is such a thing as coincidence. Just stumbled across this article on the importance of tribalism in Pakistan. Probably not completely transferable to Iraq but maybe not too far off either.
Trangbang,
A Sitzpinkler is one who sits to piss.
Going for Bloke
Not surprisingly, the controversy over John Kerry's Vietnam service has Josh Marshall in a blogging frenzy.
It's mostly what you'd expect, but this passage, in which Marshall faults President Bush for remaining above the fray, made us laugh out loud:
President Bush isn't even man enough to answer a straight question about these Swift Boat ads. (You'll have to pardon my antiquated and gendered language. But I'm not sure English has any more presentable way to convey the same meaning.)
This wonderfully encapsulates the dilemma of the Liberal Man, who can't decide if he's a schoolyard bully or a politically correct postgraduate Sitzpinkler--neither of which, we'd say, is much of a masculine ideal. It's also hard to see how President Bush's refusal to protect Kerry from his critics calls Bush's manhood into question. After all, Kerry, who by the way served in Vietnam, isn't exactly a damsel in distress.
Opinion Journal source of Sitzpinkler Marshall Comment
---
Of course JFK2 is also.
As I put it:
Aussies say "G'day"
Kerrey says "Bidet"
---
To which Buddy Larsen wrote:
Belafonte says.
"Bidet O, Bidet a, a, O!
Kaplan rerun on Hewitt.
Things happen in unexpected ways. Whudda' thought that a Danish newspaper would take the lead on including Islamist totalitarianism in the Conversation? Hat tip Michelle Malkin.
MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism
For some time now, I've had more faith in the Euros facing reality than the USA.
As we chant RoP and congratulate ourselves on our tolerance and appreciation for diversity, we ignore a less malignant threat, and pretend that open borders and unlimited immigration is not also ultimately suicidal.
James Taranto reminds us how long this thing has been going on, quack quack.
There was little mention of the Ilan Halimi case in the mainstream US media. However, Le Monde carried the story and had commentary - (www.lemonde.fr - for those of you who read French)
The odious Über-Faith is on the march, and the Über-Ummah has a long-term plan for all of us: slavery and dhimmitude.
The Über-Faith has a sense of destiny and a sense of power which it persistently uses to attempt to subjugate Free Peoples.
The Über-Faith has always coveted Europe and it covets power above all else. It is their "Project".
This article is worth reading:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content
/Public/Articles/
000/000/006/704xewyj.asp
My Misspent Youth:
Watching Storm Troopers, Heads in the Clouds,
At the Gestinko Estate.
freedom,
Chirac and the other dude attended the funeral.
If it had been here, there would have been the obligatory nod to the RoP, and equal time for a speaker from CAIR.
Ouack Quack
Drudge already took down the picture of his murderer:
Anyone know how long he ran it?
(I saw it once, just a minute ago)
FF, the weekly standard link didn't work, but I'd imagine it's the Kristol article "Will We Win?"
How much play did his murder EVER receive in the MSM?
Buddy,
Freedom's Weekly Standard Article
Scary stuff alright. So's this:
Fink-ass Russians.
Post a Comment
<< Home