Today's Washington Post informs us that "for the holidays, the spies say they’ll scrimp." [W]ith budget cuts looming, party plans are being pared back for the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA. … Under then-director Leon E. Panetta last year, the CIA...
David Frum’s Fatal Conceit
I know it's bad form to follow up on my own post so quickly, but I fear that I may have shortchanged the enormity of the assertion that "For an Iraqi, there was no price too high to pay to rid the country of Saddam Hussein." Allow me to riff a bit, with a nod to some...
Come on Down to Deranged Dave’s, Where No Price Is Too High
Last week, David Frum, of "Unpatriotic Conservatives" and "axis of evil" fame, wrote the following as part of a foreign policy Q&A: Iraq: Knowing everything you know now, if you had been in Congress in 2002, would you have voted to authorize force against Saddam...
The Future Affordability of US National Security
That's the title of a timely paper by MIT researcher Dr. Cindy Williams [.pdf]. The summary points: 1. The United States currently devotes about 4.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to national defense and another 1.5 percent to broader security efforts,...
Thank Obama for Ending War That Al Gore Wouldn’t Have Started, Says Democrat
Tom Hayden: On Saturday, the day after Obama’s statement, my heart felt good as I introduced Representative Barbara Lee at a Los Angeles fundraiser. In the lightness of her mood I sensed a burden had been lifted from her heart as well. Some of the hundred people in...
Damn You, Ralph Nader and Katherine Harris!
Of all the daily affirmations liberals tell themselves, none soothes me more than the one about how an Al Gore presidency would have spared us the Iraq War. Why, wasn't Al suitably smug about Dubya's "cowboy" act in 2002? Didn't Michael Moore open Fahrenheit 9/11 with...
What’s the Opiate of the Masses Again?
Oh, thank heathens. Once liberals have forged the Great Society among the grunts, they can take another crack at Nam. A noteworthy excerpt from the article tweeted above: Mother Jones: One of the most prominent military humanists has to be Pat Tillman, the NFL star...
Kevin Drum, Perpetual Skeptic
Kevin Drum, Oct. 17, 2011: Aside from the fact that Barack Obama did not, in fact, send troops to Uganda in order to "kill Christians," what should we think about the fact that he sent troops to Uganda in the first place? Needless to say, I'm far more hesitant about...
Pentagon’s Doomsday Looks a Lot Like 2007
The Project on Defense Alternatives sends along "Pentagon Cuts in Context: No Reason for 'Doomsday' Hysteria" [.pdf]. Key points: * The Budget Control Act (BCA) provides for assured caps and reductions on Pentagon spending only if the Joint Select Committee – the...
A Dark Day for Democrats
Sarah Palin will not run for president in 2012. Though Andrew Sullivan can be expected to persist in his quest to deploy U.N. inspectors to Palin's uterus, the nation's less-cracked Obamatons will have to build a new uber-bogeyman to juxtapose with the Lightworker....