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Reality distortion fields in evidence everywhere.

Via digg, I bring you a helpful guide on How NOT to use PowerPoint by stand-up comic Don McMillan ( Read more... )

Another lengthy excerpt from Horne's A Savage War of Peace on the effectiveness of torture. Linked references and bracketed material added:

How effective was torture?

There remains the vital question, with much relevance to today: what did torture achieve in the Battle of Algiers? Putting aside any consideration of morality, was it even ( Read more... )

Lately, I have been reading A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962, by Alistair Horne. My paperback's cover says that it's "On the reading lists of President Bush and the US military."
With the focus on counter-insurgency operations lately, military men and analysts are dusting off books on Algeria to see what lessons might be learned from ( Read more... )

It appears that the revolutionary vanguard of the anti-war movement, International ANSWER, is pressing for the impeachment of the President for "war crimes and crimes against humanity." More respectable and credible authorities, including the redoubtable Lewis Lapham of Harpers' Magazine, have been calling for impeachment, but in (slightly) less ( Read more... )

"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some ( Read more... )

The cover story of the current issue of Foreign Policy magazine is an intriguing essay on what was necessary to defeat the isurgency in Iraq.

The author, James Gavrilis, was a major in command of a company of Army Special Forces troops, was faced with the task of occupying and pacifying the town of Ar-Rutbah at the very start of the war. The town ( Read more... )

In an effort to raise consciousness about and draw attention to the plight of child soldiers in war-ravaged portions of Africa, UNICEF is running a controversial new television spot. It features the Smurf village being brutally bombed; it's so disturbing that it's only permitted to go on air after 9:00PM in Belgium, lest it traumatize children.

( Read more... )

Predictably, the /. crowd has latched on to the Pentagon's new nuclear war plans which include options for pre-emptive strikes. My thoughts on the matter are these. The Pentagon and the General Staffs are simply doing their jobs--planning for contingencies. That's what the department of defense is there fore ( Read more... )