Here are two questions that few today can answer, to wit: “During the Vietnam War, what could you buy in a Filipino PX that you couldn’t buy in an American PX?” “Johnnie Walker Black Label and Chivas Regal.” “What else could you buy in a Filipino PX?” “Nothing.” After Lyndon Johnson sent American ground troops…
Tag: Iran
Joe Biden’s foreign policy: regressin’ to meaninglessness and following the path of greatest stupidity
Gee whiz but I wish I wasn’t so prescient. A whole six months ago I wrote a post Joe Biden likes being a Cold War President, moaning a bit theatrically about Uncle Joe’s “senile swagger.” Well, it seems like Joe was just getting warmed up. United States Enters a New Era of Direct Confrontation With…
“Don’t worry about the Iranians,” says Shay Khatiri. “They’re a bunch of sissies!”
Why should we bomb the Iranians? Hell, why shouldn’t we? That’s what Shay Khatiri says, over at the Bulwark . Sure, “the state of Iran’s nuclear program is unclear.” (Translation: we don’t even know if they’re thinking about building a bomb.) But, hey, you can’t be too careful. There’s sure to be something we can…
Shorter Danielle Pletka: Murder is my business
Well, in case you were wondering, we now know why Danielle Pletka, distinguished senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, hasn’t been found in an alley with a bullet in her head: she isn’t important enough to kill! Because murder works! Okay, Danielle isn’t quite that brazen. In her recent, unfortunately (or not) paywalled article…
Daniel Larison reads the Washington Post editorial page so I don’t have to. Fred Kaplan has to ask, what’s it all about, anyway?
And thank God that Dan does read the Post for me, because if I did have to read it myself I’d have the shakes even worse than I’ve got ‘em now. In his excellent substack site Eunomia, Dan alerted me to the Post’s most recent eruption, taking them to task in his post China Hawks…
America’s latest “Forever War” not finding too many recruits
I have frequently—frequently—and loudly—loudly—complained about the compulsion of America’s foreign policy “Blob” to find a replacement for everyone’s favorite multi-trillion-dollar arms race, the late great Cold War, centering, of course, on China, but eagerly tossing in Iran, Russia, and even Venezuela, for good measure. The problem is, not everyone seems to be as afraid of…
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,…
Reports of the neocons’ demise have been greatly exaggerated
Weren’t the neocons terrible? Well, they still are, and they’re still running things at both Bloomberg and the New York Times, and they still think it’s “smart” to lie to their readers. Eagle-eyed substacker Daniel Larison brings the sad but unsurprising news on both. First the Bloomberg folks have the “great” idea that President Biden…
Terror From The Skies! Well, sort of.
“Iran-backed militias turn to drone attacks, alarming U.S. forces in Iraq” bellows the headline in the Washington Post. Louisa Loveluck and John Hudson unload a pulse-pounding narrative that is heavy on atmosphere, speculation, and innuendo, but short on, you know, facts, not to mention casualties. Because all this shrieking about those devilish Iranian devils and…
Joe Biden, last seen sinking deeper into the Blobby bog
Daniel Larison has an excellent—“excellent” as in “deeply depressing”—take on President Biden’s stumbling—“stumbling” as in “clearly and severely wrong-headed”—Iranian “policy”, which is, in fact, so bad that I’ve exhausted a whole week’s supply of quotation marks in one goddamn sentence, which means I’ll have to take out a loan, something I can scarcely afford to…