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Category Archives: Empire

Has Al Qaeda been defeated?

Juan Cole, who usually knows of what he speaks, says that Al Qaeda has been defeated: It is a dangerous thing for an analyst to say, because obviously radical Muslim extremists may at some point set off some more bombs and then everyone will point fingers and say how wrong I was. So let me […]

On to Iran? Maybe not right away.

A reader (I assume he’s a reader) passed along this story (Israel asks U.S. for arms, air corridor to attack Iran) from an Israeli Newspaper, Haaretz.com, the essence of which is that the Israel was seeking U.S. cooperation to clear the way for an attack on Iran, but that the U.S. refused, buying Israel off […]

The Times notices Suskind

It is only fair that I note after two posts on the subject (here and here) that the New York Times has finally covered Ron Suskind’s book, The Way of the World. Not on the news page, but in the form of a book review. If the Times news department had doubts about the book’s […]

Missile defense

One of the eternal mysteries of American domestic and foreign policy has to do with the missile defense system, which we learned recently will be deployed in Poland. The system has never worked, and indeed, it seems almost impossible for it to ever work. It is sold as a defensive system, which will shoot down […]

Impeach him now

We have had no access to the net, and we haven’t read the papers much, since we got her to VT. A couple of days ago we gathered from the front page of a newspaper that Bush was planning on sending troops to Georgia. It seems we have critical interests there, as we do in […]

Bringing the light of democracy to Afghanistan

Via Americablog, this is something of which everyone should be aware: A young man, a student of journalism, is sentenced to death by an Islamic court for downloading a report from the internet. The sentence is then upheld by the country’s rulers. This is Afghanistan – not in Taliban times but six years after “liberation” […]

Iran war threat not going away.

Lately some folks have wondered if Bush, egomaniac that he is, might not take kindly to being ignored and shunted to the side during a presidential campaign in which his own parties candidates will not breathe his name. Therefore, as contrary to good sense as it may be, we cannot dismiss the possibility that Bush […]

No WMDs in Iran

A lot of very unsurprising things have been revealed lately. A few days ago I noted that Bush and al-Maliki had all but sealed a sweetheart deal that, in the case of Bush, helped his cronies tremendously, and in the case of al-Maliki, promised to preserve his power, all to the detriment of their respective […]