I am finishing up a new book and am seeking suggestions for a snappy title. The book’s essays deal with the political sanction for mass killing, the fraud of idealism, how truth is perverted in Washington, why power corrupts, Leviathan-loving intellectuals, the fatal myths of democracy, and other cheery topics. My tentative title is “Principles [...]
So says Thomas Ricks, author of Fiasco and The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008, on last night’s Daily Show. “General Odierno says he would like to see 35,000 troops there (Iraq) in 2015. What that means is that we may be just halfway through this thing.” A very [...]
Those who have believed that the departure of Dubya from the oval office will mean that Israeli politicians will no longer be able to call up American presidents and tell them what to do should think twice. The story of General Anthony Zinni’s aborted appointment as ambassador to Iraq has received remarkably little attention, and [...]
Thursday is the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln. I would be perplexed by the Lincoln cult if I thought the prime Lincoln idolizers gave a damn about individual liberty. Lincoln is lionized not because he saved self-government, but primarily because he sanctified and vastly extended Leviathan. Here is a riff I did on Lincoln for [...]
Over at Foreign Relations, William Hauser and Jerome Slater have a new idea on how to win the war on terror. It doesn’t involve eleventy trillion dollars. It doesn’t involve hydrogen filled zeppelins. And it doesn’t involve nuclear-powered rail-guns or telekinetic dolphins. At least not yet. Give up? It’s reinstating the draft. Ah, but you’re [...]
Michael Ledeen, who 25 months ago announced to the world that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had died — he got this from such an exclusive source that not even Amir Taheri, another neo-con fantasist, could confirm or deny the story — once again has his hand on the pulse of the Iranian people [...]
