(Lots and lots of) War links
The robot invasion of the battlefield continues apace.
The Royal Navy is shrinking particularly fast at the moment. The US Navy is building an amphibious assault ship, the USS New York, built out of steel recovered from the World Trade Center.
About the European establishment’s refusal to face the domestic problems of radical Islam: if we don’t cherish our liberties with the fervor that the jihadists treasure their faith, we’ll lose. Wondering why the Western Left is so uninterested in the struggle inside Iran.
About a successful anti-jihadi operation in the Philippines.
An extremely experienced military interrogator stating that use of brutal tactics in interrogation is stupid and unproductive.
The US is doing badly in Arab public opinion.
Minor apparent terror attack in Japan.
To civil society in Lebanon, Israeli fears about what might replace the Assad/Baath regime in Syria look like a de-facto Syria-Israel alliance.
Hamas trumpets signing a deal which involves recognising Israel. Which it immediately repudiates: Nizar Rayyan, a Hamas leader in Gaza, brushed aside any room for ambiguity. He told Reuters: "We will never recognise Israel. There is nothing called Israel, neither in reality nor in the imagination."
Applying the “Colombia model” to Afghanistan. The Taliban’s war rules: 25) Anyone who works as a teacher for the current puppet regime must recieve a warning. If he nevertheless refuses to give up his job, he must be beaten. If the teacher still continues to instruct contrary to the principles of Islam, the district commander or a group leader must kill him.
The liberal case for bringing back the draft: If a war is worth fighting, it is worth fighting with everybody's children. And if it's not worth fighting - like the barely-supervised collapse in Iraq - then nobody's child should die in its futile name.
The Saudis are trying to calm civil conflicts in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq to reduce Iranian influence. About all of us paying for the Saudi hate machine. A terror attacked linked to al-Qaeda kills 11 Revolutionary Guards in Iran.
Mishandling a friendly fire incident sees American arrogance undermine the British alliance another step.
An Iraqi Army night raid. Scepticism that there was much the US could have done to stop the forces of violence and disintegration in Iraq. Signs of insurgents having better quality SAMs. The trouble with Iraq is that it is actually four wars at once: Our strategic stagnation results from the fact that we are fighting four wars, not one. According to Gates: "One is Shi'a on Shi'a, principally in the south; the second is sectarian conflict, principally in Baghdad, but not solely; third is the insurgency; and fourth is al Qaida, and al Qaida is attacking, at times, all of those targets." The multifaceted nature of these four wars has frustrated American strategy since 2003. Successes in one area produce setbacks in the others, with al-Qaida hovering above the fray to spoil progress whenever it threatens to bring stability to Iraq, as they did by bombing the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra in February 2006 after the successful Iraqi elections. A failure to do the basics. Arguing that historical experience suggest the best policy would be to let the Iraqi civil war run its course. A night in Baghdad.
An academic worked to rebuild Iraqi higher education reflects on his experience in Iraq: What we did wrong, where we went wrong, was so much greater than any policy. We misunderstood religion, we misunderstood human nature, we misunderstood the prerequisites of liberty and liberation, we misunderstood democracy. What went wrong was not a failure of policy; it was a massive failure of understanding. … The pundits who try to say that we are the irritant in Iraq, that if only we would leave, the Iraqis would then begin building a united and peaceful nation, are totally wrong. On the contrary, our departure would give anarchy, mayhem, and civil war its best chance. You can listen a speech by him here where he discusses, among other things, good and bad democracies.
The Royal Navy is shrinking particularly fast at the moment. The US Navy is building an amphibious assault ship, the USS New York, built out of steel recovered from the World Trade Center.
About the European establishment’s refusal to face the domestic problems of radical Islam: if we don’t cherish our liberties with the fervor that the jihadists treasure their faith, we’ll lose. Wondering why the Western Left is so uninterested in the struggle inside Iran.
About a successful anti-jihadi operation in the Philippines.
An extremely experienced military interrogator stating that use of brutal tactics in interrogation is stupid and unproductive.
The US is doing badly in Arab public opinion.
Minor apparent terror attack in Japan.
To civil society in Lebanon, Israeli fears about what might replace the Assad/Baath regime in Syria look like a de-facto Syria-Israel alliance.
Hamas trumpets signing a deal which involves recognising Israel. Which it immediately repudiates: Nizar Rayyan, a Hamas leader in Gaza, brushed aside any room for ambiguity. He told Reuters: "We will never recognise Israel. There is nothing called Israel, neither in reality nor in the imagination."
Applying the “Colombia model” to Afghanistan. The Taliban’s war rules: 25) Anyone who works as a teacher for the current puppet regime must recieve a warning. If he nevertheless refuses to give up his job, he must be beaten. If the teacher still continues to instruct contrary to the principles of Islam, the district commander or a group leader must kill him.
The liberal case for bringing back the draft: If a war is worth fighting, it is worth fighting with everybody's children. And if it's not worth fighting - like the barely-supervised collapse in Iraq - then nobody's child should die in its futile name.
The Saudis are trying to calm civil conflicts in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq to reduce Iranian influence. About all of us paying for the Saudi hate machine. A terror attacked linked to al-Qaeda kills 11 Revolutionary Guards in Iran.
Mishandling a friendly fire incident sees American arrogance undermine the British alliance another step.
An Iraqi Army night raid. Scepticism that there was much the US could have done to stop the forces of violence and disintegration in Iraq. Signs of insurgents having better quality SAMs. The trouble with Iraq is that it is actually four wars at once: Our strategic stagnation results from the fact that we are fighting four wars, not one. According to Gates: "One is Shi'a on Shi'a, principally in the south; the second is sectarian conflict, principally in Baghdad, but not solely; third is the insurgency; and fourth is al Qaida, and al Qaida is attacking, at times, all of those targets." The multifaceted nature of these four wars has frustrated American strategy since 2003. Successes in one area produce setbacks in the others, with al-Qaida hovering above the fray to spoil progress whenever it threatens to bring stability to Iraq, as they did by bombing the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra in February 2006 after the successful Iraqi elections. A failure to do the basics. Arguing that historical experience suggest the best policy would be to let the Iraqi civil war run its course. A night in Baghdad.
An academic worked to rebuild Iraqi higher education reflects on his experience in Iraq: What we did wrong, where we went wrong, was so much greater than any policy. We misunderstood religion, we misunderstood human nature, we misunderstood the prerequisites of liberty and liberation, we misunderstood democracy. What went wrong was not a failure of policy; it was a massive failure of understanding. … The pundits who try to say that we are the irritant in Iraq, that if only we would leave, the Iraqis would then begin building a united and peaceful nation, are totally wrong. On the contrary, our departure would give anarchy, mayhem, and civil war its best chance. You can listen a speech by him here where he discusses, among other things, good and bad democracies.