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Time, time, time is on my side, yes it is…
–The Rolling Stones
Regarding Freddy Gray’s last, I wouldn’t assume that today’s stenographers of the royal court aren’t correct about the perception, if not the truth, of current events as they will be viewed a generation on, at least here in the States. A stable, oil-producing Iraq garrisoned by US […]
The debate over whether the media should have access to our war dead — the “ramp ceremonies” that solemnly accompany the bodies of our soldiers and Marines onto cargo planes for home from the battlefield, the flag draped coffins at Dover Air Force base when they arrive — was lost years ago by journalists and […]
Filed under: War
When US forces invaded Iraq in 2003, the American people were told (however disingenuously) that a primary goal was to liberate the Iraqis and help rebuild their country from decades of neglect – as well as from the initial bombing campaign, which leveled whatever crumbling infrastructure existed there in the first place. In fact, the […]
Jonah Goldberg wasn’t very happy with Bruce Bartlett’s recent New Republic piece surveying the Obamacons. The Liberal Fascism author complained that Bartlett included libertarians like David Friedman among the ranks of conservatives for Obama, and anyway Bartlett supposedly didn’t give good reasons for why these dissident conservatives like the Illinois senator. Actually, he did. […]
Filed under: Conservatism, Politics, War
I have been reliably informed that the CIA added two new stars to the wall of its entranceway about three weeks ago, signifying that two more clandestine service officers have been killed in action. Both died while searching for Osama bin Laden along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The ceremony adding the stars was […]
Filed under: Foreign policy, War
I was sickened today in reading the Washington Post front page article “CIA Played Larger Role in Advising Pentagon.” The article states that a CIA “counterterrorism lawyer” named Jonathan Fredman had counseled the military authorities running Guantanamo that torture is basically “subject to perception” noting that CIA had “well trained individuals” to “perform this technique,” and […]
Ross Douthat criticizes Michael Brendan Dougherty’s critique of Matthew Yglesias (this post is turning into quite a blogroll), but Douthat concedes an important point to Michael in his second paragraph. He writes, “unless you’re a very stringent non-interventionist (or a pacifist), no matter what theory of foreign policy you choose, you’ll always be able to […]
Filed under: Foreign policy, War
One of the Bush Administration’s great successes has been its destruction of the CIA, which it regarded as insufficiently loyal to the White House mission of reshaping the world. CIA is now part of a ponderous and ineffective intelligence community that wastes billions of dollars annually while failing to capture or kill fifteen men in […]
Filed under: Foreign policy, War
One wonders if The Washington Post is really willing to carry the water for the administration into yet another stage of the US war in Iraq, or if their editorial page is running on some sort of perverse auto pilot. After editorials like these, in which they all but declare Iraq a victory and admonish […]
Filed under: Foreign policy, Iraq, War
Many ex-POWs have stated that due to the length and divisiveness of the Vietnam conflict, if the policy of the North Vietnamese toward the captured Americans had been one of strict adherence to the Geneva Convention the North Vietnamese might have returned a group of men who would have been grateful and sympathetic to their […]
Filed under: War