Michael Totten…
…on Syria. It’s not always true that the devil we know beats the devil we don’t. Worth reading.
Continue reading →Category Archives: War and Peace
On patience: the West vs. Islamicist totalitarianism
[NOTE: This is a re-post of an piece I wrote in 2008. I found it yesterday while doing a search for some information I wanted for a comment, and I thought that, in light of recent news in Syria and … Continue reading →
Obama’s Arab Spring,…
…making the world safe* for Islamicists. I called it Obama’s Arab Spring, but that’s a bit unfair, because although he has a big role I’m not at all sure that anyone could have prevented this. The Arab world is what … Continue reading →
Here’s my question about Syria
Who are the rebels? My strong suspicion is that there are few good guys here. It was the same question I asked about Egypt and Libya. In both places there were some “good guy” elements mixed among the Islamicist fanatics, … Continue reading →
Distrust vs. security, domestic and foreign: Part I
Richard Fernandez always has something interesting to say, and this post of his is no exception: For much of history our ability to harm ourselves was fortunately limited by the crude nature of our means. But by the dawn of … Continue reading →
Daniel Ellsberg on Edward Snowden: leaks then and now
Not surprisingly, Daniel Ellsberg thinks Edward Snowden’s a great hero. I’ve written at length about Ellsberg before: a historical look here, and especially this one about his more recent activities (including, interestingly enough, a group he formed a few years … Continue reading →
“We faced the dragon. And we came out of it.”
[BUMPED UP] I saw a moving piece about the 40th reunion of the Vietnam prisoners of war, who were reunited last Thursday at the Nixon Library on the anniversary of their welcome home celebration at the White House. It was … Continue reading →
As the news dribbles out…
…here are some interesting tidbits (offered, of course, with the caveat that so much of the news about this story has been mistaken). Was this man the inspiration for the older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev? Note the boxing background which they … Continue reading →
Is North Korea seriously contemplating a nuclear war?
Darned if I know. Michael Totten doesn’t know, either, nor does anyone except a few North Koreans (and maybe not even them). But he makes some interesting speculations here.
Continue reading →Meanwhile, in North Korea…
…plans continue—or at the very least, nuke-rattling propaganda continues. North Korea has been on this path for many years, confounding at least three administrations which have had no idea what to do about it. I’ve never read an article on … Continue reading →
The MSM won the Iraq War
The propaganda war, that is. I’m actually somewhat stunned by the results of this recent Gallup poll about the war (taken in honor of the tenth anniversary of its start), but not necessarily in the way you might think. After … Continue reading →
Counting casualties
There’s a new study of the costs of the Iraq War. It got some publicity yesterday on memeorandum, among other places. Counting war casualties is almost always fraught with uncertainty and is one of the areas most ripe for exploitation … Continue reading →