I just sent my book manuscript, provisionally entitled Religious Conflict, International Change, and the Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe, to Princeton University Press, sans a few "final status" maps. The blurb I wrote for it (but not the one they'll use):In...
George W. Bush had this exchange at his press conference, February 28, 2008: Q Mr. President, Turkey's ground offensive in northern Iraq is now a week old with no end in sight. How quickly would you...
From Rob at LGM, via Kevin, via Winds of Change:The latest ROUMINT suggests that Secretary of Defense Gates, now visiting India, might give them the USS Kitty Hawk, CVN-63. The carrier is scheduled...
The seed vault opens. World dignitaries, oblivious to the danger, hailed the Doomsday Vault:"This is a frozen Garden of Eden," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said, standing in one...
Steven Ratner has written a "Think Again" piece on the Geneva Conventions in the new issue of Foreign Policy. (This explains why FP rejected my proposal for a Think Again piece on the same topic about three months ago.)Ratner's list of assumptions that should be rethought include: "The Geneva Conventions are Obsolete""The Geneva Conventions Don't Apply to Al-Qaeda""The Geneva Conventions Turn Soldiers Into War Criminals""The Geneva Conventions Prevent the Interrogations of Terrorists""The Geneva Conventions Ban Asassinations""The Geneva Conventions Require Closing Guantanamo""No Nation...
Went on BBC World for the first time yesterday to talk about protecting children born as a result of sexual violence in conflict zones like Darfur, Bosnia, Rwanda, East Timor, you name the conflict zone where rape has been endemic, you'll find a host of children growing up in the aftermath. The segment just before my interview focuses on children conceived during the Rwandan genocide. As I describe in my interview and as the volume of essays I published last year details, these children are often (though not always) treated rather badly in the aftermath of wars, either by their states, local...
Let me followup Peter's post on Cuba. Legendary and colorful retired pitcher Luis Tiant had this to say about the Cuban embargo: "I think it's crazy," Tiant said. "Everybody does business with Cuba - Latin America, China, everybody - and what is the difference? We are 90 miles from Cuba. We don't have a relationship with them. That's crazy. It makes no sense to me."The people have suffered enough. They've gone through a hard life. Forty-six years I've been out. I hope it changes."As for Peter's question about the choice between domestic politics and the national interest? While neither of...
The fallout continues:"If things are not going in the direction of actually halting settlement activities, if things are not going in the direction of continuous and serious negotiations, then we should take the step and announce our independence unilaterally," Mr Abed Rabbo told Reuters.Palestinian leader Abbas and Israeli PM Olmert in Jerusalem 19 FebruaryAbbas and Olmert met but there is no news of progress"Kosovo is not better than us. We deserve independence even before Kosovo, and we ask for the backing of the United States and the European Union for our independence," he added.
If there is one domestic lobby that has captured US policy toward another country, it is the Cuba lobby that pushes for ever stricter sanctions on the Castro regime. The power of this lobby in Presidential politics can’t be overstated—it is a very large, issue specific, and highly organized voting bloc in Miami Dade county in Florida. Win Florida, win the White House, we all know that story well. Thus, we regularly see leading national politicians competing to out-tough the other in order to make inroads into the Cuban vote in south Florida.Today’s big news, that Fidel would formally step...
Reading between the lines of a front page story in this mornings Washington Post:Hillary Supporters: Oh My Heavens! We just read the rules for the Texas primary and discovered that even if we win we might not win! Why didn't you tell us this earlier? How unfair is that?!?! Our big Texas strategy could fall apart because of these rules where our voters don't count as much as we need them too. Is there any way we could question the established rules to help our candidate win?Several top Clinton strategists and fundraisers became alarmed after learning of the state's unusual provisions during a...
The BBC: Kosovo's parliament has unanimously endorsed a declaration of independence from Serbia, in an historic session.The declaration, read by Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, said Kosovo would be a democratic country that respected the rights of all ethnic communities.The US and a number of EU countries are expected to recognise Kosovo on Monday.Serbia's PM denounced the US for helping create a "false state". Serbia's ally, Russia, called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting.Correspondents say the potential for trouble between Kosovo's Serbs and ethnic Albanians is enormous.Serbia's...
'Nuff said