Karl Rove has some advice for Obama: not all “talks” are created equal. No doubt Obama’s supporters see his wild whiplashing on whether or not to talk with Iran, and under what conditions such talks might be held, as evidence … Continue reading →
In National Journal, Linda Douglass offers us a glimpse into a phase of McCain’s career I hadn’t previously known about. In the late 70s, he was the Navy’s liaison to the Senate, and it turns out to have been one … Continue reading →
Jimmy Carter is planning a dialogue with Hamas. And he’s remarkably unapologetic about it, despite requests from both Washington and Israel to cease and desist: Former President Carter said he feels “quite at ease” about meeting Hamas militants over the … Continue reading →
Our post-9/11 unity was fleeting, if not totally illusory. We are now bitterly divided on how to fight the war against Islamicist totalitarianism. We are divided on whether there is such a war. We are divided on who our most … Continue reading →
Read this article in the Weekly Standard by Frederick Kagan. He counters the facile “experts” (who know a “bunch of stuff,” no doubt) on foreign policy, those who keep telling Petraeus the real battle should be in Afghanistan, not Iraq. … Continue reading →
Now that he seems poised to become the Democratic Presidential nominee, Obama is taking a bit of heat from McCain, his likely opponent, especially about Obama’s touchy-feely (that is, predominantly talky) foreign policy. It’s a different sort of heat than … Continue reading →
First we had the new counterinsurgency manual. Now the army has a new operations manual with an emphasis on postwar stabilization. This is referred to as a “newly minted doctrine” and “a major development that draws on the hard-learned lessons … Continue reading →
Anyone who reads this blog knows I consider the Iraq war one of the biggest issues of the day. Yes, it’s faded in the news, mostly because it’s going relatively well now. But Vietnam was also going relatively well in … Continue reading →
I’m still reading Lewis Sorley’s A Better War, about the second half of our involvement in Vietnam. It’s slow going, for many reasons. One of them is that it’s painful to read it and think what might have been. Not … Continue reading →
I’ve been reading Lewis Sorley’s A Better War, an examination of what I’ve referred to as the “second act” of the Vietnam War, the period of Vietnamization under General Creighton Abrams. I have a feeling I’ll be writing quite a … Continue reading →
[Part 7A can be found here. The rest of the series is located by clicking on the category “A mind is a difficult thing to change: my story” on the right sidebar.] The last thing I was thinking about during … Continue reading →
For quite a while now I’ve been impressed by the fact that leading literary lights, for all their creativity and art, can be very dim bulbs indeed when dealing with certain other aspects of human endeavor. I suppose that shouldn’t … Continue reading →