That seems to be the way things are shaking down in Afghanistan. As Slateman Fred Kaplan notes, when Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta stated, rather offhandedly, on February 1 that “hopefully” the U.S. would be “transitioning” [that is, getting the hell out of Kabul] in 2013, rather than the previously announced/anointed victory year of 2014,…
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Expanding Starobin, excoriating Kagan
Last Friday I ran an effusive post on the fabulous articles now appearing in the New Republic! Well, that still stands, although I’d like to expand a little on what Paul Starobin wrote about the demise of Bill Daley and walk back, just a little, about what I said about the “good Kagan,” whose first…
The Obama Wars
President Obama ran for office promising “to end a war.” The artful use of the indefinite article, especially when coming from a Harvard man, should have been a tip-off that ending a war didn’t mean, you know, “peace.” The President has ended the war in Iraq, pretty much, if you ignore our Baghdad “embassy,” a…
It was a slam dunk! An upside-down slam dunk!
Was the Bush Admninistration’s invasion of Iraq based on faulty intelligence? No, says Paul R. Pillar, deputy director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center from 1997 to 1999, writing in Foreign Policy online. It was executed in the face of correct intelligence, to wit: “Had Bush read the intelligence community’s report [issued in October 2002], he…
Harvard psychologist proves that morality is an illusion, denounces mankind for being immoral
That’s the message given by NYTimes book reviewer John Horgan in his take on Robert Trivers’ The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life. Trivers, who actually teaches at Rutgers these days, fills his book with examples of “how our genes’ relentless drive to self-replicate underpins even our most apparently magnanimous impulses,” according to…
Chait and Frum, telling the truth all the way to the water’s edge
Over at NYMag, Jonathan Chait, liberal, and David Frum, conservative, take turns talking out of school and dumping on their respective parties. Chait has the easier task, because, as he tells it, it’s only the “liberals” who are out to lunch, but for Frum it’s the whole fucking party (which is totally fucking true). Chait…
The Barack Obama Chinese-American Naval Full Employment Act of 2012
Last week President Obama traveled to the quasi-god-forsaken site of Darwin, Australia to twist the tail of the Chinese dragon by announcing that 2,500 U.S. Marines would now be spending time in Australia. “As a Pacific nation, the United States will play a larger and long-term role in shaping this region and its future,” the…
How much is that in Friedman units?
Thus sayeth the ‘stache: “Last week, I toured the great Mogul compound of Fatehpur Sikri, near the Taj Mahal. My Indian guide mentioned in passing that in the late 1500s, when Afghanistan was part of India and the Mogul Empire, the Iranian Persians invaded Afghanistan in an effort to ‘seize the towns of Herat and…
Rummy’s head revisited
Yesterday I had to eat a little crow after, well, after I crowed over the fact that Donny’s Little Hideaway, aka the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, was going to be abandoned now that all U.S. troops are being pulled out of Iraq, when, in fact, it’s being expanded, at least in terms of staff. I…
Donald Rumsfeld’s head: It’s Alive!
Last week I ended a post on the imminent (well, end of the year) withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq with a melodramatic flourish, comparing the U.S embassy in Iraq to an empty skull staring out across the desert sands with sightless eyes—the idea being that the embassy, built by the Bush Administration at the…