Up until only a few weeks ago, Price Floyd was the media affairs director at the U.S. State Department. Now that he’s left that post, he reflects back on why the United States has failed to convince the world of the virtues of U.S. foreign policy. It’s not for lack of trying — U.S. state department officials have been on … Read More
Our Xanadu In Baghdad
The $600 million new U.S. “embassy” in Baghdad certainly looks nice: Yup, that’s a pool, surrounded by palm trees. And those are tennis courts in the background. It’s going to be the largest embassy on the planet, covering over 104 acres — very swiggity-sweet: This self-contained compound will include the embassy itself, residences for the ambassador and staff, PX, commissary, … Read More
Flypaper Theory Rebuked
In 2003, then-war-supporter Andrew Sullivan wrote: One of the many layers of the arguments for invading Iraq focused on the difficulties of waging a serious war on terror from a distant remove. Being based in Iraq helpsus notonly because of actual bases; but because the American presence there diverts terrorist attention away from elsewhere. By confronting them directly in Iraq, … Read More
Memorial Day Rembrances
Powerful and moving stuff from B.U. professor Andrew Bacevich. Bacevich is a vocal opponent of the Iraq War. Earlier this month, his sone was killed in that war: I Lost My Son to a War I Oppose. We Were Both Doing Our Duty. Parents who lose children, whether through accident or illness, inevitably wonder what they could have done to … Read More
The Franks/Willis Debate Thread
I’m enjoying it. Franks: Questions For Our Liberal Friends Willis: An Answer To Our Conservative Friends Franks: Questions Answered Willis: Iraq Dialogue, Continued
On Jihadists
Like Glenn Greenwald, I am getting increasingly tired of the Malkin-types who make it their daily mission to try to scare everybody into thinking that Muslims — even American Muslins — are all hell-bent on committing acts of terrorists. If an imam prays to Mecca before boarding a plane in some remote airport, the right wing punditry — Rush, Malkin, … Read More
The Rush To Fight, And The Consequences
Yup. Another "What Digby Said" moment: The Bush administration and its neocon muses have long said that the most dangerous thing the US could do would be to give the terrorists a victory by "proving" that we don’t have the ballocks to stand and fight. They firmly believe that a failure to kick ass and take names, going all the … Read More
The U.S. Palace In Baghdad
Insane: Rising from the dust of the city’s Green Zone it is destined, at $592m (£300m), to become the biggest and most expensive US embassy on earth when it opens in September. It will cover 104 acres (42 hectares) of land, about the size of the Vatican. It will include 27 separate buildings and house about 615 people behind bomb-proof … Read More
Death Of A Son
Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich is the Director of that university’s Center For Internaional Relations. A Vietnam vet, Bacevich is also an outspoken war critic, and author of the critically-acclaimed book, The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War. Here’s what he wrote in a Washington Post editorial in August 2005: In fact, apart from consuming $300 billion … Read More
Bye, Blair
I actually liked him for a while. He had a decade of really great achievements, until he climbed aboard the Bush Bandwagon.
“There Is No Longer Any Credibility.”
Dissension in the Republican ranks: NBC News reports tonight that 11 Republican members of Congress pleaded yesterday with President Bush and his senior aides to change course in Iraq. The group of Republicans was led by Reps. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Charlie Dent (R-PA), and the meeting included Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Karl Rove, and … Read More
The Fort Dix “Terrorists” In A Nutshell
CNN: WASHINGTON (CNN) — The federal government charged five alleged Islamic radicals with plotting to kill U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey. A sixth was charged with aiding and abetting the illegal possession of firearms by three of the others. "The philosophy that supports and encourages jihad around the world against Americans came to live here in New … Read More
Disaster Preparedness Is A Disaster
Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius was complaining about the lack of Kansas National Guard people at home long before her state was struck by an F5 tornado last week: "The Guard cannot train on equipment they do not have," Sebelius continued. "The more resources that are left behind, the less able our guardsmen are to prepare here at home. And in … Read More
Supporting The Troops
Right-wing pundit Dick Morris explains it all on Fox News. It seems that we need to have our soldiers in Iraq – to be killed. Yes, if we give al Qaeda fresh young American bodies there, they won’t kill Americans here: MORRIS: I think that withdrawal from Iraq — it obviously gives al Qaeda a huge victory. Huge victory. On … Read More
As It Happened
Just discovered the 9/11 Television Archives, which has the actual unedited TV broadcasts of the attack on the WTC, starting around 8:30ish that morning. Kind of odd to watch Charles Gibson talk with Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York, knowing that in less than 20 minutes, the world would change.