Enemy-Centric Warfare
Hat tip to Br. Will who sent me this Tom Ricks post at Foreign Policy on how enemy-centric (i.e. “brtual”) counterinsurgency was effective in the past as opposed to the once and now future/current...
Hat tip to Br. Will who sent me this Tom Ricks post at Foreign Policy on how enemy-centric (i.e. “brtual”) counterinsurgency was effective in the past as opposed to the once and now future/current...
With Vladimir Putin congratulating President Obama on scrapping (the rather nutty) missile defense system, I think it’s again time to ask the question why NATO just doesn’t include Russia or NATO be scrapped in...
David Frum is Dickensian: the best and worst of Republican thinkers. Assuming there are any left. His work on a domestic reform based conservatism is I think excellent. His foreign policy views, eh, not...
Not that I/you should expect much in the way of logical rigor from Glenn Beck, but is anyone else a little confused by Principles 2 & 4 in the 9/12 Project:
Jon Chait’s article on Ayn Rand is getting some play here at the League. Will’s response here, Freddie’s here. As usual here at the League I’m in a slantwise position relative to this discussion. ...
Fouad Ajami uses the anniversary of the attacks on NYC and Washington DC as a launching pad to argue that the Iraq War was all along the right war and that President Obama is...
President Obama’s two biggest problems politically are 1. a frankly crazy and irresponsible minority GOP party (with plenty of enablers to be sure) and 2. His own party affiliation. In the immortal words of...
For some reason I can’t get this video of Bob Wright to embed, so I’ll just link to it. Without Mickey, Bob is here alone in a kind of video confessional that I’ve...
Uh oh. Hadn’t seen this before, but Lawrence O’Donnell just shoots down reconciliation as the way to get health care reform through. Apparently rules state that 51 votes is sufficient only in final passage–there...
Jamelle makes some persuasive points in this post on Afghanistan–arguing that the administration and its supporters have yet to make a solid case that the war is in the US interests. As he says,...
Picking back up the thread of our quadrilogue on ideological dexterity, I’d like to start with this quotation from Scott: My own diagnosis would take Erik’s focus on the cultural absolutism of prevailing political...
Here in Vancouver we have a lot of city skunks as they have adapted to garbage can/neighborhood living. We also have a lot of folks who smoke weed in public. Both exist in my...
As of today I am no longer residing in Canada in what the US (and the book of Leviticus!!!) would call resident alien status. [Damn there goes my claim on the extra harvest from...
Spoiler Alert: Not likely. Dr. Andrew Enterline and Joseph Magagnoli (a grad student of Enterline’s) have co-written a report surveying the history of counterinsugency success rates in the 20th century. In this instance, counterinsurgency...
Upon learning that Noel Gallagher has quit Oasis you’re probably asking the same question I am: Oasis was still together? WTF? Why? Consider this your song for the evening.
(H/t John Robb for turning me on to this). As a brief followup to what I wrote earlier today on how all the typical definitions of political philosophies (liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism) are all modern...
Br. Mark last week crafted an excellent post criticizing his own political views which generated some interesting back-and-forth commentary. It comes highly recommended. Mark asked other members of the League if they might follow...
The status update of The Vancouver Public Library’s copy of Jacques Derrida’s On Grammatology reads: Trace. Beyond awesome. Somewhere Derrida is grinning.
Freddie posted a quotation from Gregg Easterbrook (whose writing I often find refreshingly counter-intuitive) about the success of the recent Indonesian elections. Easterbrook correctly laments the lack of coverage in the US press this...