Bookworm on Feb 01 2008 | Filed under: Iraq, Muslim violence
Are there words to describe men who strap bombs onto mentally disabled women and then send them into a marketplace, only to blow up the women and kill and injure hundreds of surrounding civilians, using remote control devices that keep the bombers themselves safe? I think there is a word: Evil. This is pure, undiluted, [...]
Bookworm on Jan 24 2008 | Filed under: Bush Derangement Syndrome, Iraq
I’ve never believed Bush lied and, to the extent his information was incorrect (as was information in the hands of all other Western agencies and governments), I assumed that our spywork was to blame. Now we get confirmation of what’s been rumored forever — it was Saddam who lied, never suspecting that his bluff [...]
Bookworm on Jan 06 2008 | Filed under: Barack Obama
The Surge is not working. Petraeus is not worth his paycheck. American political and military resolve have nothing to do with the stabilizing situation in Iraq. How do I know this? Because Obama said so. In Obama-land, the reason for the decrease in violence and the increase in stability in [...]
Bookworm on Jan 03 2008 | Filed under: Iraq, Military
The Surge’s effectiveness in bringing down the rate of deaths in Iraq is stunning. Naysayers (and there are a few who hang out here), have already moved the goal posts, saying that the Surge hasn’t worked because (a) all the necessary internecine, tribal, religious, etc., killing was already done before the Surge kicked in and [...]
Bookworm on Dec 14 2007 | Filed under: Iraq
This is good news:
Iraqi oil production is above the levels seen before the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The IEA said Iraqi crude production is now running at 2.3 million barrels per day, compared with 1.9 million barrels at the start of this year.
It puts the rise [...]
Bookworm on Dec 12 2007 | Filed under: Iraq, Media matters
You remember Matt Sanchez, don’t you? He’s the conservative military writer who suddenly shot to fame when it was revealed that he’d had an earlier career working in gay porn. He’s since turned against the lifestyle (porn), and writes about how it degrades the human spirit. He’s also been writing from Iraq [...]
Bookworm on Dec 11 2007 | Filed under: Islam, Israel, Muslim violence
In my post about Jews’ love for Israel and America, I noted Michael Medved’s thought experiment, which was to imagine whether world attitudes towards America would change if Israel magically vanished, as well as his conclusion that nothing would change. Nevertheless, in the comments to that post — and perhaps inevitably given how widespread [...]
Bookworm on Dec 04 2007 | Filed under: Anti-war
When I say “the war at home,” I’m not taking of the home front, a la WWII. I’m taking about Americans at war with the War. One young American, fighting (and, ultimately, dying) in Iraq, had his fill of that war:
Published: Oct 19, 2007
A Soldier’s Last Words: Listen Up CBS, CNN, Cindy [...]
Bookworm on Nov 25 2007 | Filed under: Anti-war, Bush Derangement Syndrome, Iraq, Islam, Jihad, Saudi Arabia
Dennis Prager likes to say (and I’m paraphrasing here) that liberals and conservatives have entirely incompatible world views. They understand facts in such a different way that there are few points of intersection. I had a reminder of that truism the other day when I watched Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center with a [...]
Bookworm on Nov 16 2007 | Filed under: Anti-war, Iraq
Next time someone tells you about the intractable Civil War in Iraq, you might take a moment to show them this photo. It’s by no means the factual clincher to an anti-War argument, but it is a wonderful insight in a society that hopes to mend itself, even as the anti-War crowd in America, [...]
Bookworm on Nov 16 2007 | Filed under: Iraq, Syria
As Saddam Hussein’s miles of documents are slowly being translated, more is being revealed about the WMDs:
The gist of the new evidence is this: roughly one quarter of Saddam’s WMD was destroyed under UN pressure during the early to mid 1990’s. Saddam sold approximately another quarter of his weapons stockpile to his Arab neighbors during [...]
Bookworm on Nov 15 2007 | Filed under: Iraq
Scott Malensek, writing at Flopping Aces, revisits the question of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear abilities. After a scathing indictment of Congresspeople who had access to the full National Intelligence Estimate detailing all known information about Saddam’s nuclear capabilities and his access to other illegal weapons of war, but who still chose not to exercise that [...]
Bookworm on Nov 13 2007 | Filed under: Barack Obama, Media matters
DQ often says — and I know he’s correct — that I tend to be too harsh on the media, forgetting that the media’s goal is to sell the most interesting spin pm a story, even if that story doesn’t comport with my view of how the same story should be reported. He and [...]
Bookworm on Nov 08 2007 | Filed under: Christians, Iraq, Islam, Uplifting stories
Americans like to talk about ecumenicalism, which is an idea that concerns itself with “establishing or promoting unity among churches or religions.” We in America have proven to be very good at it, so much so that we think nothing of little news stories about the rabbi giving a talk to his neighbor’s church, [...]
Bookworm on Oct 29 2007 | Filed under: Iraq, Media matters
One of the things I landed on, hard, in my post about the great Rush Limbaugh smear was the fact that Media Matters, in order to smear Rush, did some very selective editing so as to destroy entirely the context in which his “phony soldier” comment arose. It seems that another “respected” member of [...]
Bookworm on Oct 26 2007 | Filed under: Iraq, Media matters
TNR has finally broken its silence and responded to the fact that Drudge made public documents regarding the Scott Thomas Beauchamp affair. According to TNR, everything Beauchamp said is true, and any recantations resulted from the military’s bullying him, augmented by right wing spin. I don’t have time to comment know, and don’t [...]
Bookworm on Oct 22 2007 | Filed under: Iraq, Media matters
Zabrina, who blogs at Thought You’d Never Ask, used my anatomy of the faux Rush Limbaugh scandal to give us the heads up about Michael Yon’s most recent post, Resistance is Futile. It’s a fabulous post, truly fabulous, and the sole reference to it at my blog does not deserve to be buried in [...]
Bookworm on Oct 13 2007 | Filed under: Iraq, Media matters
There was yet another news headline today in which the press reported on a general critical of the Bush Administration. The headline read “‘No end in sight’ in Iraq, retired general says.” I read the news story and that is, in fact, what Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez said. Indeed, Sanchez is [...]
Bookworm on Oct 03 2007 | Filed under: Abortion, Iraq, Islam, Jihad, Media matters, Multiculturalism, World War II
There’s a new movie out about “homegrown religious fundamentalists who kill in the name of God” — and Manolah Dargis, who writes movie reviews at The New York Times really wants to like it. You’ve got to admire Manolah. After all, who in America doesn’t want a solid documentary about the homegrown Western [...]
Bookworm on Oct 02 2007 | Filed under: Iraq
I want to direct your attention to two excellent articles that go way beyond the facile statement that “the Surge worked.” First, this Big Lizard post looks at the drop in deaths in Iraq and explains why it means that the US broke the insurgency’s back.
Second, this Bartle Bull (real name) article in Prospect explains [...]
Bookworm on Sep 30 2007 | Filed under: Iraq, Media matters
There aren’t a whole lot of facts in Seymour Hersh’s interview with Spiegel online, but it becomes clear that, while he fears President Bush for being on a mission for God (Seymour’s opinion), Ahmadinejad’s pronouncements that he’s going to destroy Israel and have the bomb soon are totally copacetic. I’ve included some examples of [...]
Bookworm on Sep 30 2007 | Filed under: Iraq
We’ve heard it before (’cause the NY Times says it’s so) that Al Qaeda has nothing to do with Iraq. Apparently someone forgot to tell either AP or Al Qaeda:
U.S. and Iraqi forces killed more than 60 insurgent and militia fighters in intense battles over the weekend, with most of the casualties believed to [...]
Bookworm on Sep 28 2007 | Filed under: Watcher of Weasels
The results are in at the Watcher’s Council and I have to admit to being pleased, since my post Cosmic Ironies came in first. This was the post in which I looked at my Dad’s family history in pre-WWII Germany and thought about the little twists of fate that saw some live, and some [...]
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