Posted on September 30th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
On Lebanon: “You have to resist Hezbollah . . . [and] try to strengthen the moderate Lebanese forces, which is not an easy matter.” ~Bret Stephens, OpinionJournal.com
Thus spake Secretary Rice, who had to have enjoyed the irony of talking about strengthening “moderate Lebanese forces” when the war she and the administration backed 100% did more than anything […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on September 30th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
I found myself on a panel to discuss globalization and offered that conservatives might do well–at the voting booth and otherwise–to push free trade, liberalize markets, rein in farm subsidies, and keep Europe’s door open to Turkey. Nothing controversial for this crowd, I assumed, with the possible exception of the last. ~Matthew Kaminski, OpinionJournal.com
Reading Mr. […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on September 30th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
I imagine that the appalling Victor Davis Hanson is to blame for most of this. I simply don’t see how one can read Thucydides without coming away with some quite emphatic lessons about the long term costs of imperial arrogance towards one’s political allies, how unnecessary military adventures turn into disasters, und so weiter. Not […]
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Filed under: politics, history, foreign policy
Posted on September 30th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Henry Farrell gets medieval on a pet peeve of mine: neoimperialists invoking Thucydides. I’m not a big fan of our pundit Blavatskys who tell us that the dead would be on their side of some contemporary controversy. Orwell gets this the most of course. But if I was going to pick a historical figure supportive […]
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Filed under: history, foreign policy
Posted on September 30th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Card put it on the generals in the Pentagon and Iraq. If they had come forward and said to the president, “It’s not worth it,” or, “The mission can’t be accomplished,” Card was certain, the president would have said “I’m not going to ask another kid to sacrifice for it.” ~Bob Woodward, The Washington Post
In […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on September 30th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Garner made his final point: “There’s still time to rectify this. There’s still time to turn it around.”
Rumsfeld looked at Garner for a moment with his take-no-prisoners gaze. “Well,” he said, “I don’t think there is anything we can do, because we are where we are.”
He thinks I’ve lost it, Garner thought. He thinks I’m […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on September 30th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Many of this year’s prominent candidates are also surprisingly nationalist on immigration, playing off concerns about declining wages. “I do believe we must gain control of our borders,” Webb said during a debate. “We also must gain control over corporate America’s use of illegals. This, along with the Iraq war, has been the major failure […]
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Filed under: politics, economics
Posted on September 30th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan was under fresh pressure last night after India accused his intelligence agency of masterminding the Mumbai train bombings that killed 186 people.
Hours after the broadcast of an interview in which Gen Musharraf claimed that the US and its allies would fail in their “war on terror” without the support of […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on September 30th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut, said any leader who had been aware of Mr. Foley’s behavior and failed to take action should step down. “If they knew or should have known the extent of this problem, they should not serve in leadership,” Mr. Shays said. ~The New York Times
As of right now, that would […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on September 30th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Mr. Woodward reports that when he told Mr. Rumsfeld that the number of insurgent attacks was going up, the defense secretary replied that they’re now “categorizing more things as attacks.” Mr. Woodward quotes Mr. Rumsfeld as saying, “A random round can be an attack and all the way up to killing 50 people someplace. So […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on September 30th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Bush used his weekly radio address to hit back at critics who cited the newly declassified National Intelligence Estimate as evidence the Iraq war has worsened the terrorism threat. He said early leaks about it created “a lot of misimpressions about the document’s conclusions.”
“Some in Washington have selectively quoted from this document to make the […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on September 30th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
For the GOP, when it rains it pours. Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney, meet Mark Foley. Resigning in disgrace and/or being indicted or convicted is becoming quite the habit with these folks. The funny thing is that Bob Ney still hasn’t resigned in spite of his guilty plea in a corruption case; Foley is resigning […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on September 30th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
I like these Mexicans. They go to Catholic Church; They work hard; They’re learning English and they will eventually create a new blue-collar middle class.
Yes, I do worship at the high church of GDP. But I also worship at the high church of Catholic Mass. And therefore I’m able to combine supply-side economics with the […]
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Filed under: politics, America, Christianity, immigration
Posted on September 30th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
My Enchiridion Militis colleague Joshua Trevino now also blogs at The Claremont Institute’s The Remedy. In spite of my own disagreements with Claremont’s other bloggers, I congratulate Josh on the position and I can say with certainty that he will bring excellent insights and writing to Claremont’s site.
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Filed under: miscellaneous
Posted on September 30th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
“The usual suspects say that some state may eventually give terrorists an atomic bomb. That is, put the crown jewels of its national power into hands it doesn’t control, in much the same way that the Great Powers at the end of the 19th Century were always handing out battleships to anarchists…
“As a practical matter, […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on September 29th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
One historian has recently suggested that the strain of isolationist thought in Bolingbroke’s writings was an important European source for Washington’s Farewell Address and its warning against foreign entanglements. Particularly meaningful to Washington was the statement of English aloofness contained in the Patriot King.
Other Nations must watch over every motion of their neighbors; penetrate, if […]
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Filed under: politics, history, foreign policy
Posted on September 29th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Even if it be granted that Bolingbroke was a “patriotic” nationalist when not in exile, it should be noted that he was not an expansionist, like the seventeenth-century Commonwealth nationalists. As often with nationalists, a heavy streak of isolationism runs through his writings on England’s dealings with the outside world. This isolationism is an outgrowth […]
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Filed under: politics, history, foreign policy
Posted on September 29th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
That Bolingbroke and his Opposition appeared to later radicals with a radical face is neither surprising nor difficult to reconcile with his basic conservatism. Part of the ideological dynamic of his politics was “populist,” even though an early and most aristocratic populist manifestation, and inherent in populism is a force at once intensely radical and […]
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Filed under: politics, history, populism, agrarianism
Posted on September 29th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
To preserve liberty by new laws and new schemes of government, whilst the corruption of a people continues and grows, is absolutely impossible: but to restore and preserve it under old laws, and an old constitution, by reinfusing into the minds of men the spirit of this constitution, is not only possible, but is, in […]
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Filed under: politics, history
Posted on September 29th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Via Leon Hadar
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Filed under: politics
Posted on September 28th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
President Bush is absolutely certain that he has the U.S. and Iraq on the right course, says Woodward. So certain is the president on this matter, Woodward says, that when Mr. Bush had key Republicans to the White House to discuss Iraq, he told them, “I will not withdraw, even if Laura and Barney are […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on September 28th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
President Bush barely mentioned the war in Iraq when he met with Republican senators behind closed doors in the Capitol Thursday morning and was not asked about the course of the war, Sen. Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, said.
“No, none of that,” Lott told reporters after the session when asked if the Iraq war was discussed. “You’re […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on September 28th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
In an article for the Nation I have only glanced at, Blumenthal apparently couples us with Wes Pruden and Fran Coombs of the Washington Times, both rather moderate conservatives and good Republicans. Pruden, remember, is the “ultra-right-winger” who fired Sam Francis (in fairness to Pruden, I’m not sure he had much choice), while Fran is […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on September 28th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Is it at all ironic that free enterprise is mostly defended only by people who have never had a real job in the for-profit sector? ~Thomas Fleming
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Filed under: politics, economics
Posted on September 28th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
The following Republican members of the House of Representatives voted against the Torture-”Terrorist” Tribunal bill (HR 6166) today.
Ron Paul, Roscoe Bartlett, Wayne Gilchrest, Walter Jones, Steven LaTourette, James Leach, Jerry Moran. ~James Bovard, Antiwar Blog
Good for these men. Leach and Paul have distinguished themselves as being opponents of this bill and the war, and Jones later […]
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Filed under: politics
