The War President Who Couldn’t Be
From Joan Walsh’s The buck stops where?: “I haven’t written about President Bush for quite a while. I prefer to look toward the future. But his delusional exit interview with ABC’s Charles Gibson made me pay attention again. When Gibson asked Bush what he was ‘unprepared for’ when he became president, Bush gave this rather [...]
Horrifying
From CBS News’ Alarming Sex Assault Rate Found Among Vets: “A Veterans Administration study found that one in seven female veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan seeking medical care from the VA suffered sexual trauma - everything from harassment to rape…Numbers like that produced this jaw-dropping statement by Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif.: ‘Women serving in the [...]
Did Robert Kaplan Just Grow A Conscience?
From Robert Kaplan’s Iraq: The Counterfactual Game: “Might one then argue that the invasion was worth it?…Most fundamentally, does Iraq meet the parents’ test? Can you look parents in the eye and tell them it was worth losing their son or daughter over? As awful as it sounds, quantity matters here, for it says much [...]
Why The Citizens Are In Charge of the Military
From TIME’s Why Barack Obama Is Winning: “General David Petraeus deployed overwhelming force when he briefed Barack Obama and two other Senators in Baghdad last July. He knew Obama favored a 16-month timetable for the withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Iraq, and he wanted to make the strongest possible case against it….[after the presentation], [...]
Dec. 31: When Liberators Revert To Occupiers
From Think Progress’s ThinkFast: October 14, 2008: “Iraqi Vice President Tariq al Hashimi said ‘it’s questionable whether the U.S. will have a legitimate right to maintain its troops in Iraq’ if no security agreement is reached before the UN mandate expires on Dec. 31. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki also said Saturday that absent an agreement [...]
Good news…and bad news
From NY Times’s Iraq Passes Provincial Elections Law: “After months of bitter negotiation, Iraq’s Parliament passed a law on Wednesday clearing the way for provincial elections crucial in helping to heal the country’s deep political and religious fissures…But in passing the bill, the lawmakers simply delayed dealing with the two most divisive issues they faced: [...]
Quick, We Need A Surge!
From CBS2New’s 125 Shot Dead In Chicago Over Summer: “In May, cbs2chicago.com began tracking city shootings and posting them on Google maps. Information compiled from our reporters, wire service reports and the Chicago Police Major Incidents log indicated that 125 people were shot and killed throughout the city between the start of Memorial Day weekend [...]
I Like Any Argument That Connects Sharon Stone to the Surge
From Informed Comment’s A Social History of the Surge: “Aside from defining what proponents mean by the ’surge,’ all kinds of things are claimed for it that are not in evidence. The assertion depends on a possible logical fallacy: post hoc ergo propter hoc. If event X comes after event Y, it is natural to [...]
Obama & The Surge
From the Huffington Post’s Katie Couric To Obama: People Are “Scratching Their Heads” About Your Opposition To Surge: “In his foreign policy speech, delivered before his trip, Obama did a fine job in differentiating the tactic of the ‘Surge’ as but a thin sliver of tactic within a larger foreign policy strategy that has failed [...]
Barack Gets A Word In
From Barack Obama’s Op-Ed, My Plan for Iraq: “In this campaign, there are honest differences over Iraq, and we should discuss them with the thoroughness they deserve. Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our [...]
