Writes Ross in his recent column re 9/11 versus present times, regarding our disastrously unnecessary and grotesquely mismanaged invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan, In each of these case [the two invasions], the achievement of something relatively basic — preventing terrorist groups from existing in the kind of comfort required to pull off another Sept….
Tag: Iraq
Yo, New York Times! Want to know who started the War in Iraq? Look in the goddamn mirror!
20 Years On, a Question Lingers About Iraq: Why Did the U.S. Invade?, rumbles “Interpreter” (that’s what they call him) Max Fisher, subjecting us to a shitload of obscurantist chin-stroking before reaching an all too convenient non-answer/confession of ignorance, topping off this banal exercise in disingenuosity with this laughable quote as a closer: “I will…
The Republicans: WTF Happened to this Party? Part II Part 2: Matthew Continetti and The Right
A few years ago, I wrote an extended piece bearing the title The Republicans: WTF Happened to this Party?. Recently, in response to a couple of engaging (relatively) meas culpas—Matthew Continetti’s The Right The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism and Tim Miller’s Why We Did It—I began preparing an update. I originally planned to…
Memo to Peter Beinart: Physician, heal thyself!
AV fave rave Daniel Larison has a post up1 quoting Peter Beinart from an interview Pete did with John Glaser of the Cato Institute as follows: We also don’t have…we don’t really have a learning process that I think then shapes the public debate. So one of the things that’s really frustrating to me, and…
Who could have seen this coming? Drones, and the people who fly them, are stupid and heartless!
Michael Levenson, writing an “overview” of a major investigation into the U.S. “drone war” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria conducted by the New York Times, reports: Drawing on more than 1,300 documents from a hidden Pentagon archive, the investigation reveals that, since 2014, the American air war has been plagued by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed…
Colin Powell, a four-star disappointment
The death of Colin Powell at age 84 has brought forth lots of eulogies and a few accurate criticisms, like this one, posted at Forever Wars by Spencer Ackerman, author of Reign of Terror How The 9/11 Era Destabilized America And Produced Trump. Ackerman focuses almost exclusively on what one might call the “mysterious incident…
Dan Drezner does my job for me. And does it better! Sometimes!
Yeah, that’s right. “Terrible Dan Drezner”, as I often call him—or, sometimes, illiterate Daniel Drezner—has been doing my job—bashing “the Blob” on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and trashing the hawks/neocons on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Okay, neither my nor Dan’s schedule has been that tight, but, still, he has been working hard. One of my principal…
Joe Biden gets tough with Iran by murdering innocent Iraqis and Syrians.
He sure did. The bad, and unsurprising news is, the Biden administration launched new attacks on “Iran-backed” militia, maintaining a tradition of the U.S. doing whatever the hell it pleases on the international scene whenever it damn well feels like it, which goes back at least as far as George H. W. Bush. The good,…
Donald Trump tries to do something right. DC aghast.
Yes, you read that right: Donald Trump is trying to do something right. Not only is he trying to take a staggering 2,500 troops out of Iraq, he’s trying to take a staggering 2,500 troops out of Afghanistan as well! Effectively ending America’s only official shooting war! Almost as if we weren’t, you know, in…
Of course we’re in denial! We’re REPUBLICANS!
Over at the anti-Trumpy Dispatch, Christian Schneider explains why even anti-Trump conservatives like himself would be cawazzy to wish for Republicans to lose the Senate as well as the presidency in 2020: “Why Are Some Conservatives Rooting for the GOP to Lose the Senate? Yes, many Republican politicians have behaved badly. But a Biden presidency…